The Perfect Harmony of Hearts
by TheDragonLover
Summary: Black Doom crash-landed his 'comet' and enslaved the Mobians. Now, in the middle of an epic robotic battle of gigantic proportions, how will two Zoid specialists who hate each other try to team up in an effort to rid the world of this black scum?
1. Part One Start: Prologue

"State your rank and current position."

"Sly, this is Raptor Rank Shane in Lightning Saix. I have found Rhino Rank Moon and her Lightning Saix, and I am closing in fast. Radar shows ten enemy Zoids present and circling S.F."

"_Ten?!?_"

"Let me send you the visuals."

The Lightning Saix raced across the desert, its heavy metal paws creating dents in the sand that disappeared almost as soon as he left them while he journeyed on. His radar showed him what was ahead, but even he didn't want to believe it – ten red dots glaring at him angrily while one yellow speck flickered helplessly. "No," he whispered to his Zoid, hoping it was playing tricks on him. But the dots remained as they were, as if mocking him while they circled her. The flickering quickened, getting more persistent and desperate as each second ticked by. Time slowed down, and yet it went all too fast, his eyes widening as the yellow dot was tossed a good distance from where she had stood her ground – it wasn't a jump; they were striking her.

"Shane, get outta there! You can't take them all by yourself! Fall back, fall back!"

"No!" He nearly broke the lever as he slammed it forward to max out his boost, and he could hear the assistant boosters flare up and imagined the strange and pungent smell of burnt steel that appeared wherever they were in use. He tried to push the lever farther, but his Zoid was going as fast as it could go, nearly flying over the dunes as it leapt urgently to reach her. The Saix could feel his urgency, as well as their comrades' pain and distress. It roared as the yellow turned to orange on the screen, which was equally matched with the emotional cry of its pilot. Soul and core molded into one, they soared over sun-baked sands, trying to reach her, to save her…

"Shane! Shane, can you hear me?"

Suddenly, the dot became a critical red, flashing faster than he could blink. He desperately tried to shoot from afar with his guns, but it was no use; his were built for close-combat, and he was no marksman. Not like her…no one was like her. He couldn't lose her, not now…he needed her…

The screen abruptly lost track of the blinking light, disappearing before his very eyes.

"_No!_"

"_Shane, no!_"

Both pilot and Zoid roared simultaneously as the Lightning Saix collided with the closest Zoid there, a Red Horn, and as it was sent skidding across the resistant sand he turned to slash an oncoming Zaber Fang across the face. With such power behind the blow, the enemy was sent to the ground, sparks flying around the four long gashes now on its mug, as he was charged by another Red Horn. Dodging it and countering with his own attack, he left it crippled with a dysfunctional leg before he saw her…

There she lay, in the middle of the ten enemy Zoids, broken and defeated – the Zoid's back half was nearly incinerated, burn marks and gashes mostly on the left calf that showed they had caught her while turning. What was worse was the crushed pilot's seat, smashed into the head with a sickening force. But, she was the quickest and most clever person he had ever known…how could such slow creatures, with such pitiful aim, stop his beloved?

"Shane! Shane, get out of there! _Now!_"

Turning away from the destroyed Lightning Saix, he saw with a heavy heart the one responsible for the burns and gashes. There it stood, towering over them all with an air of darkness consuming its wicked red stare. Being a biped had its advantages, being able to survey the battlefield easier, but that wasn't the cause of the destruction of his darling. It was those claws; those deadly, terrible claws that could reach and grab someone from afar, before shocking them with tens of thousand of volts ruthlessly and indifferently. The claws that, when it hit your Zoid's hide, hooked into it and offered no escape. The terrible Zoid that was known well in both the Kingdom and the Crusaders.

Geno Saurer.

"_Shane, this is an order! Get out of there!_"

Howling in frustration and anguish, he charged the Saurer, catching it off guard temporarily. He smashed into its side, and it stumbled back from the force of the blow as he shot at it with his cannon. But the Saurer took it without flinching, and the time left open by the situation let him make the mistake of standing still. Suddenly, the Saix went into a spazzing fit as electricity was forcefully pumped into its system, causing sparks to fly in the piloting area. The claws refused to let go, holding onto it like a predator with its prey, gripped greedily as it roared with a hunger for blood. It echoed menacingly, as if a reminder of his meeting with Death was fast approaching.

And he shouldn't keep her waiting.

"Shane? Shane – you – breaking – static –"

Smiling to himself, his hand hovered over the big black button, his fist trembling. Sensing what he was going to do, his Zoid showed its protest by howling with both pain and torment. Shane closed his eyes, and the room lit up by flying sparks was replaced by an image in his mind. His beloved stood there, smiling and laughing merrily, as their daughter giggled at them, only an infant at the time. Her birthday was a few weeks ago; she just turned twelve a little while ago. She would have soon been piloting her own Zoid, battling side-by-side with her parents…

Feeling the pilot's sorrow and reluctance, the Lightning Saix understood Shane's intentions. He could feel how his pilot had so many emotions swirling in him, contained like the bottles that the milkman often left beside their front door; sadness, fury, regret, reluctance, and peace. He would be joining her soon. He had to push aside everything else to get revenge for her, to honor her name. _His _name. _Their _names.

He smiled as his Zoid gave him an encouraging battle yowl. "Thank you, buddy." It then turned into a grin as the others grew confused by their sudden eagerness. He turned to look at the tenth to find that, unlike the rest, the Saurer had discovered their true intentions, and it tugged at its claws in efforts to get away and run. But his claws, the same claws that had killed his beloved, were wedged deep between two plates of armor, and no matter how much he tugged he couldn't free himself. The same technique that had killed so many of his enemies now trapped him; and the hunter became the hunted.

"I'm sorry, Shadowpaw," Shane sighed regretfully, hesitating a little. "I wish I could watch you grow up as a Zoid pilot, but I want you to know that I'm proud of you. Become the best pilot you can be.

"I love you."

"_Shane!_"

He slammed his hand down on the button, smirking as he felt the energy in the core overload itself. "_Die, you bastards!_"

_DL_**DL**DL

_Report:_

_That day, when scouts were sent to survey the area, they returned saying they had found a huge crater where eleven blackened Zoids were found. They were unidentifiable, but two in the center of the blast were recognized as the source of the crater. They were locked in close-combat, one's claws in the other's hide, before the other had pressed their self-destruct button and committed suicide to kill the enemies. They said there were only eleven Zoids, but reports show that there were ten enemy Zoids and two of ours. Investigation was fruitless, for the desert's ever-changing landscape provided no clues, and so it was abandoned. A funeral was held for Moon and Shane, and their daughter was sent to their own base to receive instruction from me._

_If you walk by their graves, side-by-side, Moon's says, "In honor of Moon, who stood up against impossible odds to protect her honor." But, if you look at Shane's, you see, "Shane, whose bravery and courage, and love, is deeply admired and truly missed." A bouquet of roses is left on both graves, white on hers and black on his, and a small stuffed toy is left on Shane's. Their daughter had put it there, to 'remind him of her in heaven'._

_Their daughter is training to be a Zoid pilot now; she carried her father's legacy and picked up on battling in close-combat, although, like her mother, she is a lithe and swift pilot in delivering her blows. Her parents would be proud of her._

_I know they would be._

_Cid Windokin, Alpha Rex (General) of the Crusaders_


	2. The Lightning and the Shadow

_The Perfect Harmony of Hearts_

_**First Chapter Dedicated to:**_

_**Mema**_

_**& **_

_**AmyAddict1 **_

**Chapter One**

**The Lightning and the Shadow**

"Here are the files you wanted, sir."

"Thank you."

"Excuse me for asking, Kussia, but why did you want to see these folders? …Kussia?"

"Hold on, Sly, give me a minute…where are those blasted – _aha! _Found 'em!"

"Found_ who_, Kussia?"

"That's 'Mr. Windokin' to _you._"

"Agh, just because you received the title from your father – whatever,_ Mr. Windokin,_ found _who?_"

"Two pilots, both rather incompetent when it comes to teamwork, but_ wonderful _when on the battlefield. Sly, hold this, please."

"You're welcome. Now _who,_ for the last time –"

"Shadowpaw Fur, Rank Tiger with three stripes, pilots a Lightning Saix –"

"_Whoa, whoa, __**whoa.**_ You mean _the _Shadowpaw? Daughter of two of the _best _Zoid specialists I have seen myself? _That _Shadowpaw?"

"Is there another Shadowpaw I don't know of? Here you go."

"Why do you need to look at them?"

"I do believe she started as a Wolf, right?"

"You're avoiding the question…but yes."

"Explain, if you will."

"Well, _sir,_ the feline had been promised to skip three ranks – Rabbit, Deer, and Eagle – by Shane, but she had to prove herself by doing something incredible, as her father had done before her."

"Go on."

"Well, we all know how extraordinary _he_ was, right? His daughter's just the same. One day, when she was sent on a recon, she was attacked by three of the Kingdom's best strategist teams."

"Ouch. What Zoids?"

"I believe they were three groups of two Red Horns and a Gojulas, which really doesn't sound all that intimidating, but when you're alone out there, surrounded with no place to run…"

"Yeah, I know how that feels. So, how'd she deal with them?"

"There aren't any exact reports, since her radio got cut off mid-battle, but what we've collected shows that she went berserk on a Red Horn that got too close to her front, and she shot down _two Gojulas_. _Alone. _In the _desert._ Without _any _training_ whatsoever._"

"Wow…pretty impressive, for a newbie."

"Yeah."

"What happened to the other teams?"

"After seeing what happened, they suddenly retreated and returned to their territory. By then, communication had been restored, and we had to yell at her to not follow them."

"_Really?_"

"Yep. She said she 'had to kill those bastards' or something else colorful like that."

"Hm."

"She would have been a great teammate…"

"_Would?_"

"Well, if she wasn't so damn hardheaded. She won't listen to orders, unless they go in her favor, and if she doesn't like what someone says she'll twist it and find a loophole, or poke one herself, to get what she wants. She's just recently been kicked off of her _last_ team, the P.G.S.F."

"The Pack Gray Strike Force?"

"Yep. It was inevitable, since she was promoted to Tiger, but…"

"I see…"

"Say, who's that other fella you're looking at?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, _him._"

"Who, Kussia?"

"Here, you see for yourself."

"Okay…hm, him, huh?"

"Shadow, Rank Lion with twelve stripes, pilots a Shadow Fox that he's owned for _seven years._"

"You're not even looking at the paper, and yet you say all of this as if you've committed it to memory."

"Well, of course; I keep track of all of my 'soldiers', him especially."

"Why? What's so special about _that _hedgehog?"

"What's not? He's only a Lion Rank, and yet he is, or _was_, on Phoenix Tank Strike Force. You have to be pretty good to skip the rank-requirement and slip into the P.T.S.F."

"You've got a point…wait, _was?_"

"Well, he kind of…got kicked out."

"Why?"

"His case is similar to Shadowpaw's; he dislikes taking orders."

"Well, I knew _that_…but, didn't he always? It didn't bother that many people before."

"Yeah, well, that was before the captain of the team had had it. He was sick of him, and after finding an excuse to report him he let him go like a hot potato."

"Hmm…so, they both don't have a team?"

"Yep."

"And they hate taking orders."

"Yep."

"And you're looking at their files."

"Yep."

"…_Why?_"

"I think they'd work great together."

"_What?!_ Were you even _listening _to half of what you were _saying?_ You just said they wouldn't take orders –"

"Exactly."

"…Did I miss something, or is it just me?"

"It's just you, Sly. No, seriously, think about it; if they are on a team together, what will they do?"

"They will fight and fight and basically get _nowhere_."

"_Wrong;_ they will mess up something, and the only way to fix it will be to work together. Simple."

"Umm…you're_ planning_ on them messing up?"

"Yep."

"How messed up is _that?_"

"Believe me, it'll work out…eventually. You'll see."

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

"Another great round, Shadowpaw!" Tails' voice rang through the radio bright and sunny, as always. "Come on in so I can fix the scratches on your Zoid."

Shadowpaw gave a soft sigh, closing her eyes for a moment, before she opened them and smirked. "Alright! Coming in." She turned her practice Zoid, a Command Wolf, around to face the open doors to the base and ran full speed into them. She made sure to screech to a halt at the last second, startling some of the people nearby, and she snickered to herself as they waved obscene hand-gestures towards her and threw nasty little curses through the air. Ignoring them, she told the Zoid to lean down before she let the orange shield that guarded the pilot rise open. Unbuckling with a snap of the button, she leapt out quickly and energetically, landing on her feet as graceful as always. After all, she _was _a cat. In fact, she wore a cat_ suit_ – a white one. She liked it; it reminded her of her mother…

A small orange fox could be seen running up to her, and she gave the Wolf a reassuring pat before taking off her helmet (for safety precautions, of course) turning to meet her mechanic. He had a wide grin on his face, the same one he always had whenever he was excited about something, and she accepted the expected tackling and hugging, if a bit awkwardly, as Tails swished both of his namesakes around in a childishly-hyper manner. Shadowpaw couldn't help but laugh at the sight, and she ruffled his bangs before she asked, "What are _you _so worked up about? Where's the fire?"

"The Alpha's requested for your presence!" He looked as if he was going to burst. "I've got to bring you to him, and I'm going to meet Sly! _Sly!_ He's, like, the head of the mechanics and everything! Isn't that freakin' _awesome?!_"

"Whoa, calm down!" She gave him a stern look. "Did Cream and Simmy slip you some sugar?"

"Uhh…"

Her strict-look disappeared immediately as he looked down and shuffled his feet, and she patted him on the head comfortingly. "Hey, don't worry about it! I was just as hyper as you when I was younger." Her eyes clouded slightly at a stray thought, but then she shook her head and poked his shoulder. "Come on, let's get a move on. Where exactly is what's-his-face's office?"

"It's _Alpha Rex Rank Kussia R. Windokin of the Crusaders, __**Shadowpaw.**_" He sighed, as if they had switched ages and he was now the mature adult. "How many times must I remind you?"

"Every time I forget. Now come _on._" She began to drag him by his ear, but he slipped away and began to run ahead, laughing as he went. She shook her head at him, scowling, but she ran after him all the same. She didn't like the thought that she was being summoned by Alpha-whatever; she had hoped she wouldn't grow in rank so she wouldn't be closer to getting direct orders from him, but it seemed the world was against her.

'What the hell does _he_ want?'

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

"What the hell does he want?"

The hedgehog was obviously irked about being bothered while in his private quarters. Although the door was closed and the messenger was speaking through it, the high-pitched voice was enough to annoy him.

"I don't know, Mr. Shadow," the little girl's voice rang through the door, "but he said it was _reeeeal_ urgent!" There was a moment of silence, where she was left standing still to listen for his answer, but when he didn't give one she sighed softly and told him to 'please hurry up' before she was heard skipping off, humming some song to herself as she went. It wasn't until her footsteps had completely faded away that he sat up from his bed and sighed heavily. His ebony eyes stared at a wall that had a dark stain on it (he didn't want to know _what _it was) as he wondered what the Alpha could want. Nothing came to mind, other than the fact that he had been forcefully shoved out of the P.T.S.F. just recently…

'But that's not what he wants to talk about, isn't it?' He asked himself, before he got up from his bed with a grunt and walked over to the table where his helmet lay, kicking a can that lay on the floor on the way. It crashed into the wall with a metallic '_clang!_' as he exited his room, already a bit irked as he paced down the hall. Whenever he passed other Zoid specialists, he smirked inwardly at the whispering that followed him. They knew who he was, and if they didn't he made sure they knew by the emblem on the breast of his Zoid suit. A backwards pure-white crescent with a shadowy cross in the center between both of the curved tips of the moon, something he had designed himself. He was very proud of it, and had even painted it to the side of his Zoid, the Shadow Fox.

He reached the hallway with the elevator that would take him to the Alpha's office to see the bunny messenger from before waiting there for him. She was only a little girl, but she was cousins with two others here who were important to them, and so she was allowed to stay. With all of them being runts, it was rather annoying to stumble whenever they ran into you or shot past you like a whirlwind. He gave an exasperated sigh before he walked up to her to receive her smile reluctantly. She explained as he stood there, "I would normally go on in, but we're waiting for another Zoid Specialist." It was amazing when she sounded mature, really. Especially when she was rocking back and forth on her feet with her hands behind her back. "When she gets here, we'll all go in together."

He barely even gave her a nod before he retreated to leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, his usual position. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch the bunny still rocking back and forth, and his mind drifted to other things…

'Wait, did she say 'when _she_ gets here'?' He immediately grew that more curious about what the Alpha could want with him. His thoughts turning to the Alpha Rex of the Crusaders, he brought back memories from long ago when he was a young teenager.

His father was a very skilled pilot and had worked with Cid, the former Alpha Rex. In fact, he was one of his teammates for a time, before his father left to form his own team and became his bodyguard instead. It wasn't long before Cid had reached Alpha Rex status, and he always had his bodyguards with him when he went out. They had actually become close friends. But, one day they were attacked by Kingdom pilots, and everyone in their group perished in the battle, whether in combat or suicide to prevent capture. They were the last two to give up the ghost, biting to tooth and nail until they were completely immobilized, never giving up. He was proud of his father for that.

Mentally sighing at himself for bringing up the subject in his mind, Shadow continued his waiting when suddenly he heard a curious sound. It was someone…talking. As if they were far away enough that it wasn't in their room, but he could still understand them through the wall. Without opening his eyes, he tilted his ears so he could hear more clearly, and he listened.

"_Dammit,_ Tails! Stop gripping and yanking my arm so hard! I'd like to keep it attached to my shoulder, ya know…"

"_Sorry_, it's just you're walking too slow! I mean, we're going to meet the Alpha Rex, _and_ Sly! _Sly! We're meeting him! Can you believe it? We're meeting –_"

"I _get _it, alright? You've only said it – how many times now? –_fifty-three times _in a row."

"You're exaggerating…"

"Okay, thirty-five."

"Nuh-uh."

"No, seriously. Thirty-five times."

"Really?"

"_Yeah. Really._"

'Well, this is an interesting conversation,' Shadow thought to himself as he waited for the people to enter. He hadn't missed the part about them meeting the Alpha, and so he decided to listen carefully as he heard the footsteps get closer. They seemed to be taking an awfully long time, though. No wonder the younger voice was so frustrated.

Speaking of which,

"_Shadowpaw! Gah, you're shuffling your feet on purpose!_"

"Am not." She was obviously lying, with the way she said it all mischievously.

"_Are too! Hurry uuuup!_" The kid resorted to whining as the other snickered at him. His complaints kept getting louder and louder, until suddenly the door opened beside him to let in the two people, whereas he opened his eyes to examine the newcomers. A young two-tailed orange fox was the first to burst in excitedly, while a black feline entered behind him, calmer than her companion. She looked around the room as if assessing the situation before her gaze finally found the hedgehog to her right. For some reason, she scowled slightly, but only enough that he could see her disgust before her face returned to a normal expression. She looked back at the young fox-boy who was practically going to burst, and she gave an agitated sigh before telling him, "If you keep that up, I'll make sure to say _extremely embarrassing things _in front of 'Sly'."

That quickly made him stop fidgeting. Looking satisfied, she gave the rabbit a glance before saying, "Alright, I'm here, Cream. Now what?"

"We go up the elevator," she responded with a smile, before skipping over and pressing a button on the wall. After a moment, a light lit up with a '_ding!_', and the doors slid open smoothly to allow them entry. Cream filed in first, and then the fox, and finally the two Zoid specialists entered last right before the doors closed behind them. As they began to move up sluggishly, the rabbit turned to the fox and smiled brightly. "Well, hi, Tails! I didn't know _you_ were coming along, too!"

This fox (as well as the other runt) was actually her cousin, he now remembered, and he watched as 'Tails' began to converse with Cream while the two older people in the elevator remained silent. They both seemed to see no reason to bring up a conversation, and so they didn't. It was mostly quiet, other than the little ones' chatting, until suddenly the feline was brought into the conversation.

"_So, Ms. Shadowpaw,_" Cream began, making both of the older accompanying persons flick their ears toward her, "what's it like piloting a Zoid?"

Shadowpaw sighed wearily and with annoyance. She acted like she had been asked that a lot. "I don't like it when you start asking questions, Cream, 'cause you runts never stop."

"Aww, come on, Ms. Shadowpaw! Is it hard?"

She received a blunt answer. "No."

"So it's easy, like a second nature?"

"Sure." She didn't sound like she wanted to talk.

"What about your family? Was your daddy or your mommy good pilots? What did they do?"

There was an awkward silence after her words faded, as if they had been the wrong ones to speak. The feline did not look at the rabbit, instead staring at the wall beside her as if she hadn't heard. Tails shuffled his feet nervously, glancing over at his cousin as if he wanted to say something to her but couldn't find the courage to. It was all rather interesting to the hedgehog, who looked like he didn't care, but was really listening for the cat's answer. Who was she? What did she use? Who were her parents?

It was a while before the feline made a move to answer. She looked at the rabbit and, after a moment of what seemed like indecision, finally gave a smile and said, "My father and mother were two-of-a-kind pilots, and I'm glad I've followed their footsteps." Leaving it at that, she returned her gaze to 'her wall', her expression now thoughtful as she ignored the other three that accompanied her. She had left many questions unanswered and created new ones for the others, but they were unable to be asked because the elevator began to slow. It eventually came to a complete stop, and 'Shadowpaw' stepped out as soon as the doors parted, leaving the rest behind as she walked briskly to the office that stood before them now. She seemed to want to get it over with as quickly as possible. The fox-boy followed her soon afterwards, his steps wide as he tried to catch up to her quickly. The rabbit, however, stayed by Shadow's side, just staring down the hallway before the hedgehog went along too, and she skipped beside him until they reached the door where the other two stood and waited.

"Come in," they heard a moment later, and they all entered at the same time to see how big the office was. It wasn't really decorated, with white walls and black furniture with a white desk, and it made the people already in it stand out. Sitting on the black couch a few feet from the desk in the center of the room, a ruby/maroon vulpine fellow sat with his arms behind his head and legs crossed as he relaxed into the soft cushions. Shadow could see how excited Tails was by the way he seemed to shake with barely contained energy at the sight of the fox, and he caught a glimpse of Shadowpaw rolling her eyes at him before their attention was redirected with someone clearing their throat. Everyone's gaze, including the red fox, went to the only white furniture in the room and the person that sat behind it.

Sitting in his charcoal leather chair with his hands clasped together in all seriousness, the Alpha Rex nodded towards the two young ones and told them, "Can we have a moment?" He obviously wanted to talk to the specialists alone. The bunny happily obliged, but she had to tug slightly on her cousin's arm, as he had stood there looking at Shadowpaw and the other fox reluctantly. They finally exited, but not before looking at the adults curiously, inquisitive to their upcoming discussion. It had to be extremely important if Kussia didn't even want _them _to hear it. The door swished close behind them, and the adults were left alone.

The Alpha Rex was a gray squirrel who looked almost exactly like his father before him, other than the fact that Cid was more hardened by battling and wars. Kussia was young and not as experienced as his father, although he was pretty close, and yet he sat at his desk with a sort of powerful atmosphere around him making him seem as important as his status. He wore a jacket with an old-style army camouflage-design and had his hands together as if trying to look the part. He must have had a lot of pressure and burden on his shoulders, trying to live up to his father's legacy…

Suddenly, he cleared his throat, effectively gaining everyone's complete attention. He gave a glance at the red fox lounging on the couch, giving him a curt nod before he returned his gaze to the two specialists before him. He looked as serious as a heart attack.

"We need to talk."


	3. Teaming Them Up

_The Perfect Harmony of Hearts**  
**_

_**Second Chapter Dedicated to:**_

_**Mema (of course)**_

_**AmyAddict1**_

_**&**_

_**Dalsson (and he BETTER be reading this!) **_

**Chapter Two**

**Teaming Them Up**

"_Doom! Doom, urgent news at the boundary!_"

"**What is it, Black H? I am busy –**"

"_It's those Crusaders, Doom! Their forces have gotten stronger in the past few years, and their getting progressively closer and closer to HQ! I suggest we evacuate immediately and –_"

"**You are not the one to be making orders around here, **_**Hawk!**__** I**_** am the one who holds the Kingdom in his grasp. Ever since we have taken control of this pathetic planet that they call Mobius, we have ruled with an iron fist! **_**No one **_**can undermine us **_**now!**_"

"_Yes, O Honorable Black Doom, but…Doom, have you seen them battle?_"

"**My Eye sees all, Hawk. I have surveyed their abilities, and I still believe they are no match for our forces, especially with **_**our**_** numbers.**"

"_Yes, Almighty Black Doom…of course, Doom…_"

"…**Do you have something on your mind? I can sense all of your thoughts from here, and there is something bothering you.**"

"_W-Well, Master Black Doom, we have noticed that a certain number of Zoids have been repeatedly raiding the areas just South of here, steadily getting closer and closer. Their attacks are fleeting and approaches sluggish, but they are still coming. It seems they are aiming for a final battle at the capital._"

"**Indeed…have you scanned the Zoids that have been salvaged?**"

"_Yes, we are in the process of analyzing as we speak…_"

"**Excellent! We shall soon find their Zoids' weaknesses and exploit them to turn the tide in battle. Continue with this, and report to me every twelve-hour cycle.**"

"_Yes, umm…there _is _something else…_"

"**Speak your part, or dismiss yourself immediately.**"

"_Yes, Controller of the Kingdom! Right away! I have noticed, personally, that a certain DNA structure is somewhat familiar – I have, in fact, encountered this Crusader individual's blood relations. The Crusader that destroyed the original Black Oak in its Geno Saurer was the 'father' of this one._"

"**Who is this Crusader you continue to refer to?**"

"_Here is the file I hacked into while skimming the boundary and picking up transmissions and such from the enemy. Can you pick up my thought patterns –_"

"**You mean **this **Crusader? You must be joking – I have slaughtered pilots more experienced than this one, and yet you are worried about** this **youngling?**"

"_Well, it is not 'worried' – more of a cautious behavior. After all, its bloodline has caused enough trouble for us. I would like permission to destroy it on sight._"

"…**Hm, it would seem you would like to make up for a past mistake, would you not?**"

"…"

"**After all, you allowed that **Lightning Saix **to destroy one entire team on its own, and you ran cowardly from it to save yourself.**"

"…_Yes, All Powerful Black Doom, but I will redeem myself! I will not run away this time! This Crusader _scum _will regret joining –_"

"**Actually, I don't want you to kill her. Not just yet.**"

"_...But, why, Doom? Isn't it an enemy?_"

"**Yes, but I would like to…study this specimen. After all, **she** is a rather extraordinary pilot, crippling three teams of three by herself.**"

"…_Yes, I suppose it is…_"

"**Alright, you are dismissed. Oh, and Hawk?**"

"_Yes, Doom?_"

"They** refer to their reproducers in female terms, like we do. Also, if you fail to report back to me, or you kill her without my orders, I will personally tear your wings from their sockets and make you drink the blood that drips out of your veins as you lay bleeding to death on the sand.**"

"_Yes, Master Black Doom, of course. As you wish._"

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

Shadowpaw rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms and scoffed. "_No,_" she said, sarcasm dripping from her mouth, "I thought you just wanted to have a cuppa _tea._" She rolled her eyes once more and grumbled under her breath about 'hating these types of people', which was only silenced by the squirrel's piercing glare that quieted her for a moment. When she refrained from speaking, he sighed and motioned for the two to sit down. The black hedgehog beside her took a seat in a chair nearby while she decided to sit beside 'Sly' on the sofa, and as they made themselves comfortable Kussia glanced over at the fox and insisted, "Sly, can you explain the situation? I was never really good at these sorts of things."

Sly sighed a bit reluctantly, as if he had been expecting something like this, and he turned to face the specialists as they switched their attention to him with anticipation. He glanced at their faces, as if examining them and trying to read their souls or thoughts, before he cleared his throat and began, if a bit awkwardly.

"As you both know, we have been battling the Kingdom for more than a hundred years now."

"Oh, _great,_" Shadowpaw grumbled to herself, not expecting someone to hear (or caring if they did), "a _history lesson._"

She received another glare from the gray squirrel and a curious look from the hedgehog beside her, and she rolled her eyes but shut her mouth to listen to the rest of the explanation. She did, however, examine the other specialist, curious as to why he was there with them. She had never seen this guy before, but _any _guy was trouble to her. She looked him up and down from the corner of her eye, examining the muscles he had under his sleek form-fitting specialist suit. His suit was, unlike hers, a black that seemed to make his fur even darker, and his symbol was plain on his breast as the sun was in the sky. The black cross was a bit striking against the pale crescent, its backwards curves showing a broken circle of light. It was a…strange combination, to say the least. Was he perhaps religious?

Sly cleared his throat, and, when all eyes were on him once more, he continued on, "Since the beginning, everything was pretty much black-and-white; either you were on _our _side, or you were on _theirs._ However," he sighed and shook his head, "it is not like that anymore. Many groups of people have split off into their own groups, trying to overcome the Kingdom to set up their own type of government in its place."

"Like GUN?" The hedgehog's suggestion was unexpected, but appreciated, by the red fox, as was evident by the slight raise of his eyebrow. Sly gave him a nod in affirmation and respect. "Yes, _especially_ GUN. Although, at the moment, that _other _idiot is more of a hazard to us."

Shadowpaw smirked. That 'other idiot' was Dr. Ivo Robotnik, or, as everyone called him behind his back, 'Eggman'. He was a tall human with a portly belly and a bushy red mustache who commanded Zoids without pilots. He had them built with intelligence so they wouldn't need a pilot to assist them, but after his ideas were rejected by the Crusaders he broke off and started his own branch of the military. Eventually, he grew so obsessed with power and greed that he decided he would try to rule Mobius. Compared to GUN, though, Shadowpaw really didn't think he'd have a chance.

GUN was an organization led by the Commander, who was once a part of the Crusaders until some unknown reason made him decide to leave and make his own army. Shadowpaw didn't know much about him, except that he was 'hell-bent on revenge' against someone in the Crusaders. Who, she had no clue, nor did she care. She was just there to follow in her father's footsteps.

"Anyways," Sly brought Shadowpaw back to reality with the importance in his voice, "we – meaning Kussia and myself – have found that they are following our movements towards the Kingdom, most likely in an attempt to attack the Kingdom after we retreat to try to overcome them while they are down. This is unacceptable." He glanced at Kussia, as if for some confirmation of some sort. When all he received was a stare in return, he looked back to the specialists to continue.

"So, we have come to the decision to –"

Shadowpaw growled, impatience burning her fuse short, "Will you stop beating around the damn bush and come _out _with it?"

"– to put you both onto a team together."

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

The room fell deathly silent after that. Kussia looked at the red fox a bit anxious, as if hoping that he would have eased the news onto them a bit more…slowly. However, the mechanics wiz just stared at the two specialists, expecting some sort of reaction.

And he got one.

"…_What?_" The feline stared at him at first with confusion, as if she didn't understand him properly, but when it became clear that she did not hear wrong she seemed to grow a bit hostile. She growled and shouted, "Dammit, I don't need no damn team! I can work _alone __**perfectly **_fine! I don't –"

"_Shadowpaw!_"

The feline stopped, her mouth left to hang open in a frozen protest as the squirrel glared her down. Soon afterwards, her jaw snapped shut and she returned the glare fiercely, determined not to be ordered around. Shadow had to admit, she had spunk, but she also had a bad attitude.

At first, it seemed that Kussia would get angry at her and start to yell as well, but then he suddenly calmed down, and with a sigh he put his hands together to stare at her normally. Her face grew puzzled, and she frowned slightly at his sudden change. Then, the squirrel cleared his throat to show he was going to speak and began to talk calmly, yet firmly, to her.

"Shadowpaw, your father was one of the most elite in our force." He kept eye-contact with her, as if daring her to look away first. "His powerhouse tactics were something not seen in any normal Lightning Saix pilot. And your mother," he nodded his head respectfully towards her, "was as good with the Lightning Saix as your father was with guns."

Finally, after a thick and heavy silence had fallen in the room, Shadowpaw tore her eyes away, the amber orbs shimmering with some old memory. Satisfied with his success, Kussia let out a short sigh before he carried on. "At first, they did not want to work together; your father was a rather 'lone wolf' type of person and didn't want a 'girl' to weigh him down. The same went to your mother, who didn't like the idea of dealing with a 'chauvinist pig' as a partner. They were…quite competitive at times, fighting constantly."

Shadow noticed that, at these words, a small smile flickered on her face, lingering for a moment before being wiped away quickly by some invisible eraser, as if she had never smiled in the first place.

"But, after a while, they saw each other's strengths and weaknesses that they could use to their advantage, and they overcame their differences to meet each other halfway." He smirked at her. "It wasn't long until they stood before the alter, either."

"They were quite determined people," he caught her mumbling, as if she had been there to see them like that before. Not getting what this had to do with anything, Shadow straightened up when Kussia turned to look at him. The hedgehog didn't say a thing, knowing better than to question authority at the moment, but his complaint stood clear in his eyes, to which the Alpha Rex sighed. He seemed to steel himself up for the challenge, and then he started.

"Shadow, you've just been kicked out of your team recently, as has Ms. Shadowpaw here," he motioned to the feline, who rolled her eyes at being called 'Ms.', "and you both have talents and abilities that, if combined, would be affective in battles and such. Your team would be a great asset to have in the battlefield, and many – well, many_ more _– would come to respect you."

He paused for a moment, as if to let the idea sink in for a bit, before he continued, "Also, you have always said that you wanted a challenge." He smirked at the specialist and lightly taunted, "Wouldn't _this _be a challenge _worthy _of your 'expertise'?"

Shadow smirked at the squirrel. He was always finding a way to try to aggravate the hedgehog, and while most of the time he succeeded, today wasn't his day. "Well, if you put it _that _way," he glanced at the feline, who was glaring at the both of them, "I guess I'll think about it."

"Oh, you can think about it," Kussia said confidently, "but, either way, you both don't have much of a choice. I will give you a week to make preparations for your first mission, as a _team_." He chuckled at the look on Shadowpaw's face and told her, "Don't scowl at me. I'm pretty sure you can handle _this _knucklehead, with _your _experience."

Then, Sly grinned as if he had just been given a new Zoid and said, "In the _meantime_, you two should spend your remaining time here _together_, you know, to get used to each other!" He seemed to ignore the death-glare that the feline gave him, as well as the drop-dead look Shadow gave. He then turned to Kussia and saluted him with two fingers. "Nice talking to you, Alpha Rex, but I believe I must be off. Save me some of that pizza, will ya?"

Kussia sighed and shook his head at him as the red fox walked out. "Will you ever give me the respect I deserve?"

Sly smirked mischievously at the doorway. "Why, Kussia, whatever are you talking about?" He then waved slightly at him, winked at the specialists, and turned to walk off as the door closed behind him. When the door closed fully, Kussia's shoulders sagged slightly as he sighed again, as if he had had stress in them because of the fox. Then, he was back to his nearly regal position, and he nodded at the two specialists and said, "You may go, as well."

They both stood up and bowed in respect to his authority, did about face, and were about to leave before Kussia stopped them with, "By the way, Shadowpaw, you never gave me your symbol."

The feline stopped her brisk pace ahead of Shadow (she seemed eager to leave) and looked up at the ceiling in thought for a moment. "I've forgotten. I'll think about it for my last week here." She scowled at her words and was going to keep going before Kussia stopped her again, "What about your parents'? Why not take up their symbols?"

She was quiet for a moment, her back turned to both of them so they couldn't see her thoughts from her face. It didn't seem like she would answer, until, without turning to look at him, answered, "I'd rather not…pick those up, Kussia. Leave them be." Then, she continued her trek through and out the door, leaving a puzzled hedgehog and a thoughtful squirrel. Shadow looked at Kussia questioningly, but all he said to him was, "Keep an eye on her for me, will ya? I don't want her getting into any _more _trouble."

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

She slammed the door shut behind her, throwing her helmet down onto the bed before stepping into her bathroom. She grumbled as she shed her suit, "I swear, it's as if the world's out to get me or something…"

Turning the knobs to the tiled shower, she glared at the wall as she muttered, "I don't _need _someone to baby-sit me! I can take care of my_self!_" She tested the water with her hand, then turned the knob a bit more. "I mean, didn't I take out three Kingdom guys on my own? Isn't that evidence enough?" She sighed, not understanding people at all, before she shed her socks and gloves and such to step into the warm oblivion that was a hot shower. She stood in the spray, wanting her stress to wash away like the dirt on her skin, and smirked at how ironic it was that she would like a shower. "If anything, I should fight to get in one like I used to!" She gave a short laugh, but it sounded more forced than she wanted it to, so she just kept silent as she took the soap and began to scrub to get the sweat that her suit had successfully trapped off of her. She had to admit, it felt good to be clean when she just stepped out of the shower.

After a while of silence, she muttered, "Seems like I'm getting forced into this, huh?" She knew that she wouldn't get an answer, since there was no one there _to _answer, and so she just replied to herself, "After all, I only have a week before I go on my next mission, and I'm teamed up with some stuck-up specialist who's got some nerve." She sighed, turning off the water and squeezing her hair-like fur on her head until it didn't drip as much. As she wrapped a towel around herself and stepped out of the shower, she shivered at the cold and quickly looked for something to wear. Foraging through her closet, she pick out a white tank top, gray sweatpants, and a black jacket to cover her arms, and after she put them on sat on her bed to think.

"Well, what's the worse that could happen? I mean, well, he could be a total meathead and have a head full of hot air, and I'd have to basically baby-sit_ him_." She chuckled at the idea, feeling a bit better, and she grinned as she stretched her arms out over her head. "I won't let _him_ break me! _No one _can cage me! I'm a free spirit, baby!"

Then, she heard a knock at her door, and she sighed and stood up to answer it. "Well," she mumbled before she got to the door, "here's the beginning of the week at Hell."

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

Shadow was standing against the wall in the Zoid hangar, his foot up to steady his back against the cold steel as he examined the paperwork for his Zoid. The sounds of many other Zoids powering up or shutting down echoed painfully in his ears, but he ignored them as he tried to concentrate. Three certain little kids, however, prevented that, if unintentionally.

"Hey, Simmy, ya wanna play tag?" Cream asked the little red squirrel that was her other cousin playfully, smiling as bright as the sun outside. They were sitting cross-legged not too far away from the hedgehog, close enough so he could hear them even over the loud noises around them.

"Only if Tails plays, too!" The little guy was shorter than Cream, being younger than her, and so he tried unsuccessfully to drag her behind him as they went up to the young fox-boy. Try as he might, Shadow just couldn't ignore them, and so he glanced over the papers to watch them discreetly as the rabbit poked Tails in the side.

"What?" He sounded a bit irritated, as if he was pouting. Cream giggled at him and asked, "Do you want to come play with us?" She was an undying fountain of love and happiness; it was surprising she never tired.

"No, I've got_ important work to do._"

"Aww, but _Tails_, you're _always _working! Can't you take a break?"

"No! I have to keep maintenance on these Zoids, or I'll get in trouble!"

"Not even a little, teensy-weensy bitty break?"

"_No!_"

"You're such a sourpuss!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am _not!_"

"Are _too!_"

Shadow sighed and returned to his paper, but a new voice made his ears swivel to listen intently. "What's with all the yelling?" He looked up once more to see his new partner strolling along over to the children. He looked over her casual clothes and noted that she wasn't going to pilot a Zoid, and so that led him to wonder why she was there. Was she going to check on her Zoid?

"Cream called me a sourpuss!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yes, you did!"

She grinned at the children and taunted, "Aren't you a little too _old _to be fighting so childishly, Tails?" She smirked as he crossed his arms and pouted, and she ruffled his bangs and told him, "Geez, you're all mature and important! You're almost more mature than me!" She then pushed him out of his chair, and when he began to protest she just said, "A little exercise would do ya some good."

Cream and Simmy squealed and ran off, leaving Tails blinking for a moment in confusion before he caught on and ran after them, yelling, "Hey, why am _I _'it'? That's not _fair!_" Shadowpaw watched them for a moment, a wistful look on her face, before she turned to look at the panel Tails was looking at.

Shadow raised the papers so she wouldn't see him watching her, and he observed the feline as she casual sat down and put her feet up on the desk and her hands behind her head. She got herself comfortable in the chair and sighed, as if she had been hoping to commandeer his chair, making the hedgehog roll his eyes at her. 'She's just like a child,' he thought as he returned to his work, 'and I will treat her as one. She's not even worth my time.' He then went to examining the paperwork, making sure that everything was perfect and nothing was wrong.

He stood there for a while, flipping through the pages and scanning each line, before he finished scrutinizing the Alpha Rex's work (he wanted to point out any mistakes and rub it in his face, returning the favor of course) and set it down on the table beside him and stretching his sore muscles. He could stand staying in spot for long periods of time, but his body paid the price, and so he did not bother hurrying his muscles to recover as he relaxed into a chair beside him. He could have sat in there earlier, but that would be a sign of weakness. And Shadow was _not _a weakling.

As he let his gaze travel around the room, he noticed the feline was sitting with the chair turned towards him, and realized she had been watching him for a while now. She sat in the chair cross-legged now, her back up against the leather as her sharp amber eyes inspected him like a predator would its prey. A bit angry at that analogy, he glared at her and crossed his arms, determined not to look away first. She showed she accepted the challenge when she crossed hers over her chest as well, her eyes burning with an intense anger and hatred. A bit pleased with her reaction, his eyes bored into hers, trying to make her flinch and back off. But she did not budge, and so the game went on.

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

Shadowpaw actually felt a bit excited to meet his challenge, and she could feel the energy she got in anticipation to show him what he was dealing with. 'He might _think _that he knows me,' she smirked audaciously, 'but he has _no idea._' She just smirked when he raised an eyebrow at her, which only served to confuse him even more. Enjoying the little game he had set up, she continued to stare at him, daring him to try something.

As the 'game' progressed, she took the time to examine him and see what she could expect from him. His eyes were a deep dark crimson, reminding her of spilt blood on pure white walls, and two spikes of red crowned the edges. Each independent spike on his head stood out on its own, bent at some odd angle or another, like boomerangs, to show how set he was on his goal. No matter how hard you threw him, he always came back at full force. Moving down his face, she examined that tightlipped frown of his, revealing concentration and determination that made her tingle with excitement. This hedgehog was a man of purpose, who would_ not _stop to mess around or deal with useless matters. He would not wait for her or try to comfort her; in fact, he might try to harm her if the time was right.

He was a challenge, and she was willing battle him and show him who was boss.


	4. Headstrong

_**Chapter Three Dedicated to:**_

_**AmyAddict1**_

_**Mema**_

_**Mom and Dad**_

_**Dalsson & Co.**_

_**Lizzy**_

_**Matt**_

_**and Jade, who was in surgery (wish her luck!) **_

**Chapter Three**

**Headstrong**

"…Oh, _hello, _Kussia! Or, should I say, Alpha Rex."

"…Urmph, I can't get this blasted thing to work!"

"Err…Kussia? Why are you trying to get that old CARD to work?"

"The CARD, or Conversation Automatic Recording Device, from nearly five years ago, you mean."

"Well, yeah, but…why are you messing with it?"

"I'm_ not _messing with it!"

"Then what the bloody hell _are _you trying to do?"

"I'm _trying _to listen to it, what _else _would I do with a CARD?"

"Err, I don't know…perhaps throw it at someone's head?"

"That sounds like a good idea right about now…"

"Hey, don't look at me like that! I was kidding! Here, let me see it."

"_You?_ How could _you _possibly find a way to fix this thing if _I _can't get it to work?"

"Well, for one thing, I would put a battery in it."

"What? …Oh. Yeah, I knew that."

"(Sigh) Sure ya did, AR, sure…"

"Hey! Don't abbreviate my title! And don't be all sarcastic with me, Sly!"

"Alright, geez! Here, I have an extra battery on hand."

"Thanks…wait,_ why _do you have…?"

"I must always be prepared for the unexpected."

"Right…"

"…Is it working?"

"Not_ yet, _you impatient little – _yes_, it's working! Finally!"

"So, err, what is it…?"

"Just…listen."

"Okay…"

"_State your rank and current position."_

"_Sly, this is Raptor Rank Shane in Lightning Saix. I have found Rhino Rank Moon and her Shadow Fox, and I am closing in fast. Radar shows ten enemy Zoids present and circling S.F."_

"_Ten?!?"_

"_Let me send you the visuals."_

"Sound familiar, Sly?"

"…Wait, is this –?"

"Yes, Sly. This is the exact transmission sent to us by Raptor Rank Shane Fur in his Lightning Saix, mere minutes before his death."

"…I can hear the sound of his Zoid running through the desert with his boost at full speed."

"Yeah. He was trying so hard to save her."

"_Shane, get outta there! You can't take them all by yourself! Fall back, fall back!"_

"_No!"_

"You know, Alpha Rex, I sometimes wonder…"

"…Hm? Wonder what?"

"I wonder what he was thinking, jumping into the middle of a cluster of enemy Zoids to try to save one of ours."

"Well, you must understand his mental state then."

"No, I perfectly understand. I know how he must have felt."

"_Shane! Shane, can you hear me?"_

"You do?"

"Mhm. I do indeed, Kussia."

"How could you possibly understand what he was thinking if you were not there to witness it?"

"You do not need to see something to believe it. And, even if you _do _see it, you might not want to."

"Now don't go all philosophical on me, _Sly._"

"You say my name as if it's a curse…"

"Maybe it is."

"You wound me, dear friend! Such sorrow I have now in my heart…"

"Oh, shut up, Drama Queen, and listen."

"_No!"_

"_Shane, no!"_

"Hear that Sly?"

"…"

"That was his Zoid colliding with the Red Horn that was shown in the visuals he sent you. He went in headstrong, a powerhouse and tank 'til the end."

"Like father, like daughter, eh?"

"_Shane! Shane, get out of there! Now!"_

"He never listened."

"Nope."

"_Shane, this is an order! Get out of there!"_

"Bastard taught his daughter that."

"The one thing we didn't want to be handed down, Sly. The _one thing._"

"_Shane, you're breaking up into static! Can you hear me?"_

"I don't think he did hear you."

"Eh, he_ did _say that his hearing was kinda funny in his left ear."

"Yeah…"

"_Thank you, buddy."_

"Who was he talking to?"

"His Zoid. What _else _would he be talking to? The sand?"

"Usually _I'm _the sarcastic one. I'm being one-upped by a squirrel."

"Hey, this squirrel can kick your ass!"

"Sure. You tell yourself that at night while you curl up under your 'Alpha Rex desk'."

"Hey – don't be disrespecting the desk, man."

"Err, Kussia? Can you…"

"…Yeah. I'll stop it."

"Thanks…unpleasant memories, ya know?"

"Yeah. Everyone came to their funeral, including their daughter."

"And now, their daughter is a fine young pilot, part of a two-man team, and going on an important mission."

"Mm-hm."

"(Sniff) Our little girl's growing up! Insert sobbing here."

"(Sigh) It's sad when we have to joke about stuff like this just to make ourselves feel better."

"Life _is_sad, Kussia. Things…happen. No matter what precautions we take, people die. Nothing we can do can stop it."

"Hey, I don't need _you _to start lecturing me. You sound like my_ dad_."

"Heh, I'm older than you, so I _can _sound like an elder!"

"Whatever, Sly – get out of my office."

"Aww, come on, did I hit a raw nerve or something? I didn't mean anything…"

"Just get out of my face. I have _important paperwork _to do."

"Ha, poor squirrelly! I'll leave you to your doom! Ciao!"

"Argh…he'll be the death of me, I swear…"

"I can hear you grumbling, buddy ol' pal!"

"_I said go!_"

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

The feline sighed as she sat down at a table with a tray and began to eat her breakfast alone. There were many other people there, but she didn't feel like trying to socialize with any of them. Especially not after the sleep she had; she might throttle them before they could get out a 'hello'. Chatter went on around her as she took a mouthful of eggs and bacon, but when a shadow fell over her she turned around to look at the person invading her personal space. A familiar bat stood there, her hands on her hips and a sly smile on her face like always. (A/N: Rouge is wearing the outfit from Sonic Heroes, btw) She looked like she had a mighty secret to tell, but that glint in her eyes made you wonder if you really wanted to know. Shadowpaw, being the kind of person she was, sighed and turned back to her food, knowing that Rouge would sit down of her own free will and didn't need offering.

"Is that any way to treat a friend?" The bat said with mock-hurt and put a hand over her heart as she sat across from Shadowpaw. She didn't sit beside her because _no one _sat next to her. It was as if it was taboo or something to be right next to her, but being across from her was fine. You could pester a lion from far, _far _away.

Shadowpaw just rolled her eyes, thinking to herself, 'You _aren't _my friend.' But, that would seem rather rude, and she was in a 'good' mood (more like an 'I'm-too-tired-to-deal-with-your-antics-so-I'll-just-ignore-you-or-throttle-you' kind of mood) this morning, so she let it slide _just this once._ She looked up at the bat as she ripped apart her ham and asked, with her mouth full, "So, what do you want?" She knew that she didn't just decide to sit down and keep her company.

"Must I _always_ have a reason to talk to you?" Rouge smirked as the feline rolled her eyes again, and she admitted, "I _would _like to ask you about something, though."

Shadowpaw picked up her mug of coffee and gestured it to her. "Shoot, ask away."

"What're these rumors I keep hearing about you and that guy named Shadow?"

In the blink of an eye, Shadowpaw had spit out the coffee in her mouth and began to choke. She coughed as Rouge came to pat her hard on the back, looking at her curiously. It was only when she had calmed down and was breathing normally that she sat back down and looked expectantly at her for the answer. They were silent for a few minutes, people walking past them to sit with their buddies and catch up on the news, until Shadowpaw looked up from her food to stare at Rouge.

"When you say rumors," she started hesitantly, "what kind of rumors do you mean?"

"Oh, the usual," Rouge motioned with her hand as she kicked back in the chair and swung one leg over the other, closing her eyes, "the 'they're a team now's and the 'their bitter rivals now's and the 'secretly in love's and all. The usual mix-ups and mismatches of our cluttered society." She half-opened one eye to stare at the feline before her. "Now, would you like to clear me up? Or shall my mind go to the gutter?"

"Your mind's _always _in the gutter."

Rouge chucked a little at the common barb. "Joking aside, you're stalling for time."

"I am _not _stalling."

"Honey, I can take a hint. You don't want to talk about it." She grabbed her tray and was going to leave when the Lightning Saix specialist grabbed her arm firmly to stop her. She looked at Shadowpaw questioningly, as if wondering what she could want. The feline's face was gloomy, but it showed that she felt she had a right to know. After all, it wasn't really a secret. She told her, "Sit back down. I'll tell you."

Hiding a triumphant smirk behind her hand casually, she turned back and did as she was told, resting her elbows on the table to clasp them together as if she was saying grace as she listened to her tell her tale.

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-&-_S_-**O**-N-_I_-**C**

Shadow (quite out-of-the-blue, really) sneezed as he walked through the line for ordering breakfast. A bit absentmindedly, he scratched the tip of his nose as he used his other hand to pick up a healthy helping of ham, but he grew annoyed when a familiar voice spoke from behind him.

"It seems that _someone's _being gossiped about all around the base!"

The black hedgehog sighed and didn't bother turning to glance at the blue one next in line. He knew that Sonic would have found him if he went to breakfast, but Alpha Rex had specifically told him to go and eat with the other specialists, and so he had reluctantly obeyed the strange orders. It was really only a matter of time until he had unwanted company.

The 'nuisance' was an amazing specialist in his own right; although Shadow's Zoid was a fast sprinter, it had a slow start and took a while to get up to speed, but Sonic's was fast from the start. A 'cousin' model of the Shield Liger, the blue hedgehog's was called the 'Sonic Liger' after its pilot. It was stripped of its heavy-duty armor only keeping the basic bottom layers, and it had boosters built into it already, still leaving room for another optional component. He chose to retain the Shield Liger's weapons, but instead of the shield that made it so famous (and infamous) he decided to add mines to it so that anyone on his tail would bite dust and shrapnel. All in all, he was pretty formidable and hard to get a lock on when he circled his opponents.

"So," Sonic tried to strike up a conversation, "what's this I hear about a partner? Being forced into something, ol' buddy?"

"It is not information you are required to know," he stated coldly, already a bit agitated that the nuisance had called him that dreaded nickname. Unfortunately, all that his blunt answer did was cause the blue hedgehog to raise an eyebrow questioningly. Sonic teased, "On a 'need-to-know' basis, huh?" He grinned. "Must be pretty important!"

"I suppose so," he grumbled offhandedly as his gaze traveled around the buffet to see what he could possibly eat. He grabbed some bacon as well as a heap of eggs while he tried to edge away from the source of his frustration. It was really irritating, really, that only the sight of this hedgehog caused him to groan in discontent. They were quite a pair of rivals as well, always trying to one-up the other in some form or another, although Shadow's recent fall out of the P.T.S.F. made the competitive game die down for a bit. It always seemed to end out in a draw between them, which only caused the tension to increase in pressure and the sparks to fly more easily. The only reason Shadow wasn't completely on his case and strangling him was because they were in public, and if anyone got hurt, or (more preferably for Shadow) fatally wounded, he didn't want any witnesses to go against him.

He was sure that Sonic was now talking to him casually like he was ought to, but a conversation that included his name interested him, and he gladly ignored the blue hedgehog beside him to swivel his ears in the other direction and shamelessly eavesdrop, delving into the middle of it.

Although it was in hushed tones, it was really 'fair game' for anyone who wanted to listen. One female voice said to the other, "So, you're the partner of Shadow, one of the hottest, most skilled pilots here, and you're _complaining?_"

The other voice, which he noticed immediately was extremely familiar, replied a bit exasperatedly, "_Yes, _I _am;_ seriously, Rouge, you've known me long enough to know that I don't take _anyone's_ interference with my schedule kindly."

He wanted so badly to turn around and look directly at the people, of which he had an inkling of their identity's, but then his 'rival' would know he wasn't listening and inquire as to why. So instead, he busied himself with shuffling down the line as he continued to listen to the conversation.

"Of course, _you_ would complain about anyone being with you. I mean, even if God himself came down and asked to work with you, you'd give him a 'hell, no!'" He heard a sigh even from this distance. "Seriously, girl, you need to get a boyfriend. Or at least get laid."

He could hear the scoff and snickering even if he wasn't trying to pick them from the rest of the crowd, and as the other one kept laughing the agitated one growled, "Is that _all _you ever think about? Anyways, I don't _need _anyone to come and 'be my partner'."

"Of course; _the 'Almighty Shadowpaw Midnight Fur _doesn't need _anyone _to help her. She can take care of everything _herself, by herself, with no one else._ She's just the _ultimate feline ever _and can't _stand _any help or pity or –"

"I _get _it, I get it, alright? Geez, I swear, if you had said that any louder and gained the attention of half the room, I would have killed you." She obviously didn't like to be reminded of her full name.

"Honey, you would have killed me, anyways." A slight giggle from the older female. "You never liked me teasing you."

"I _still _don't. And stop laughing at me!"

"Shadow?" He groaned inwardly as the blue hedgehog finally realized he wasn't paying attention to him and tried to tap him on the shoulder. "Hey, buddy, you listening?" When the 'Ultimate Life Form' just grunted and continued down the line towards the cash register, he frowned and followed him, wondering why he wasn't even trying to be social. 'It'd probably kill him,' he concluded and watched as he flashed his ID to the lady behind the register, and then proceeded to do his own. When he heard a small grunt and an 'oof', though, he turned to see that a slightly familiar feline had bumped into Shadow on her way to get some sauce from the end of the line. He couldn't place where he had seen her before, but he knew that the white specialist suit she had on was quite unique and wasn't worn by anyone else, especially as a full-bodied cat-suit (no pun intended). She was only missing her helmet to show that she was ready to jump into the cockpit as soon as possible as she glared at the black hedgehog she had knocked into. Seeming a bit aggravated to be near him, she nearly spat out, "Watch where you're going, _Lion Rank __**Shadow**_."

It seemed that, for a moment, he was going to explode and yell some scathing insult back at her for being such an idiot. But, eyes had already been drawn to them, and he thought of an even better way to get on her nerves without being so rash. His demeanor already cooling down, he smirked at her and replied calmly, "Of course, _Tiger Rank Shadowpaw Midnight Fur._" His smirk almost grew wider at her scowl as she retreated to get her sauce and went back to her table, showing that she had let him win this battle. But the fire in her eyes and hatred in her scowl showed that there were many more to come, and he was willing to face them all. As he walked past her table to sit at one near a secluded corner of the room, he heard the other woman – 'Rouge' – comment with a sly humor, "_Boy, _Shadowpaw, you _really _know how to pick them!"

The feline's reply was a bit worn out and overused, as if she really didn't have the time or patience to argue with her properly: "Shut up…"


	5. Time's Almost Up

_The Perfect Harmony of Hearts_**  
**

**(Shadowpaw: Heheh, I'm writing the dedications! Heheheh...)**_**  
**_

_**Chapter Four Dedicated to:**_

_**AmyAddict1**_

_**Mema**_

_**Pepa**_

_**meh Dad and Mom**_

_**Lizzy**_

_**Mikayla**_

_**Jade**_

_**Ashley**_

_**Feather**_

_**Dalsson & Co.**_

_**to-love-is-to-lie and Striking Falcon (DL's requests, of course)**_

_**and, also DL's request, Smokey (she says he's "the bestest dog in the whole wide world and needs to be hugged constantly". Heh, it must suck that she's almost never there to see him! Heheh... **_

**Chapter Four**

**Time's Almost Up**

"Sir! Sir!"

"_What?_"

"We've just gotten a report from our spy and she's requesting an audience."

"Well, put her on, you idiot!"

"Yes, sir!"

"…_Greetings, Commander. I assume everything is going alright at the base?_"

"Yes, everything's fine. Now, I want your report."

"_Of course, Commander. I couldn't keep _you _waiting._"

"Well? Get on with it!"

"_Gosh, so impatient, Commander! It just so happens that I have some _very_ good news._"

"You do?_ Any _good news is welcome in _this _damned place."

"_Yes. It seems that the Alpha Rex is sending out a team to investigate the borders of their 'territory'._"

"Really? That doesn't sound very interesting. Any specifics?"

"_It gets better. The two people a part of the team happen to be _very _skilled pilots._"

"How is that good? It just means more trouble."

"_Oh, but _this _kind of trouble is beneficial, _trust me"

"Stop speaking in riddles; I don't pay you to entertain me."

"_But of course, Commander. Speaking of which, I'm sure you've already sent it to my account?_"

"Yes, yes, it's all there. Now tell us what you've found before I lose my patience."

"_Well,_ someone _woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Anyways, one of the two happens to be the daughter of the two most _talented_ Zoid pilots in the Crusaders._"

"Really? I was sure that they had no children."

"_Well, you didn't really delve into the subject, anyways, so it's only expected that you wouldn't know about her._"

"So, other than the fact that she has a good bloodline, what is so important about her?"

"_Well, other than the fact that she is an excellent pilot in her own right, she has been forced to become the partner of someone you know, Commander._"

"And who would that be?"

"_Oh, I think you know who, sir. After all, he's the reason you left._"

"…Interesting, indeed. Anything else?"

"_Not much, other than the fact that I believe she might be a bit of a threat to us. Also, she has some type of close connection to the Alpha Rex like _he _does, although I'm not exactly sure how or why._"

"Alright. Thank you for the report, and make sure to stick close to them both."

"_My pleasure, Commander. After all, he is _quite _the hottie._"

"Stay focused; I don't need you to jeopardize this entire organization just for one of your eye-candies. _Especially _not _him._"

"_Yes, sir. Over and out._"

"Over and out."

"…Sir?"

"What_ now?_"

"Here is the report she sent to us on paper. Perhaps you'd like to…look at it?"

"I will in a minute, soldier. Now back to your station."

"Yes, sir!"

"…

Shadow…

I will be looking forward to _crushing you._"

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

She sighed and reluctantly got up from her bed that had provided no rest for her, although she wanted dearly to retreat to its soft haven. This was her last normal day at the Crusaders' base, before she went on her little 'mission' with her 'partner'. She scowled at the thought, but still she walked over to her wardrobe and picked out a long-sleeved black turtleneck and a pair of white sweatpants. She always made sure to pick out something white in her attire, whether it was an entire outfit or just a pair of socks, since it reminded her of her mother. Although she loved her father, her fur was a reminder enough, and she really didn't look much like her mother, so it was the least she could do. She was just pulling on some white socks when a knock came at her door, and she sighed and walked over to see who was there.

She was surprised to peer through the eyehole and see Rouge standing there, and after a moment she hurriedly opened the door and asked, "What're you here for? Something important?" She was fully aware that she really only bothered her for or because of news.

The bat nodded and said a bit triumphantly, "I've just gotten wind that I am going to be your technical support and transportation for this mission. Isn't_ that _important?" She was grinning like the Cheshire cat, as if proud to announce this bit of information herself. After a while, though, her smile turned into a frown when Shadowpaw only stared at her. "What? Aren't you glad?"

The feline blinked, and then shook her head and said, "Oh, yeah, I am. I'm just…preoccupied at the moment." She sighed and reminded her, "I've only got a day left here."

"So you've only had a week to relax." Rouge nodded in understanding. "Alright, well, I'll leave ya to it, then. Wouldn't want you to miss out on your beauty sleep for when you meet your partner!" She smirked as her teasing made the feline scowl at her and shoo her off, and she waved at her with a cheery 'ciao!' before Shadowpaw shut the door behind her. She sighed and put her back up against the cool metal of the wall before sliding down to sit upon the floor, fully absorbing the information she had given her.

Rouge was her technical support and transportation. She would be accompanying them on their mission. She was going to be with the bat and the hedgehog at the same time for a _long _time.

She sighed in frustration and put her head in her hands. "Why me?" She pouted for a while, letting her immaturity fully out in her privacy, before she stood and straightened up, determination lighting a fire behind her eyes once more.

"Someone's going to hear about this."

_K_-**U**-S-_S_-**I**-A-&-S-**L**-Y

Sly was sitting calmly at his desk, minding his own business, when he heard the door slide open with a '_whoosh_', signaling the Alpha Rex's arrival. When he looked up, though, it seemed that the normally calm face of his leader was now filled with anger and rage towards him. It was only in the moments that he was alone or with Sly that the gray squirrel let his mask fly off.

"Did you do this," the squirrel accused immediately, nearly slamming a folder down onto his desk. He didn't flinch, though, or even move to look at the folder, instead shifting his gaze up to examine the icy blue one that glared at him. He inquired calmly, "Do what, sir?" He knew he shouldn't be rude with him at the moment, instead taking to the comfort of honorifics to shelter in.

"Don't play dumb, Sly." He didn't seem too happy with the head of the mechanics in the building. "You know _exactly _what I mean."

At first, he _didn't_ know what he was talking about. After all, he had just stormed into his office and smacked his desk with a folder. He was slightly shocked, making him incapable of answering. Then, his eyes lit up in realization, but his other features remained the same as he said, "I would probably be easier to deal with if you explained, sir."

"You authorized this without asking me about it," Kussia said in a dangerously low tone. He wasn't here to play games with him. "And don't tell me you didn't, because I have proof."

"Believe me, I wasn't going to," he raised his hands defensively, finally slipping one over to grab the vanilla folder and opening it to glance inside. Skimming the contents, he eventually looked back at his leader and asked, "And you disapprove of my actions?"

"I do not," he admitted, "but I'd rather if you would _ask permission _first." He sighed, a bit of his anger escaping in the breath, and grew a firmer expression. "It would not do to have anyone _else _going against my wishes simply because _you _did."

"Don't worry," Sly grinned at his leader, "I made sure that no one knows that I did this of my own free will. It is in _your _name and such." He waved away the worried look on the gray squirrel's face. "It seems harmless enough, though, doesn't it?"

"Perhaps…" The thoughtful look on his face made the fox grow curious. When a silence began to settle between the two, Sly quickly fought it off by asking, "'Perhaps'? What does _that _mean?"

Kussia sighed and scratched the back of his head. "I don't know," he admitted, "it's just…I feel strange around her." Immediately, he glared at the fox. "And don't you _dare _start up on me. Not _that _type of strange."

Sly held up his hands in defeat. "Alright, I get it. I know what you mean." He looked at him seriously. "_I_ think something's up. But, the only way to catch the rat is to lure it out with cheese."

"I _never _like the way you look at me whenever you say that."

"Aww, come on, you know I don't mean _you,_" he grinned, "after all, I can't trick _you._"

"Right…" The gray squirrel shook his head. "Well, I have to go. I should watch my new 'team-of-three' as much as possible now." He scowled, and suddenly Sly knew why he had come in. He grinned knowingly at the squirrel.

"She came into your office and chewed you out, didn't she?"

Kussia scowled again, confirming his assumptions, and grumbled, "That's none of your business!" When Sly started laughing, he threw the folder at his head and ordered, "Get back to work."

"Yessir!" Sly saluted him and was still chuckling when he left, and he thought of the many times he had done things Kussia didn't like. He grinned rather idiotically and said under his breath, "Good times, good times…"

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

Shadow was surprised when, once again, the feline walked into the Zoid hangar without her suit on. As he watched her from behind another stack of papers, he wondered why she even came in here if she didn't have any work to do or practice her Zoid piloting. Also, he noted how furious she looked and pondered about what had caused her to get angry. He was slightly shocked to see her kick Tails chair so that it skidded halfway across the floor, and then took a folder and threw it like a ninja would a shuriken. It flew and let loose its contents all over the floor, covering the metal ground with blueprints and important documents as she hissed curses and such to thin air. It seemed that she didn't notice he was there, thinking she was alone in the hangar, and he made sure to stand completely still so she wouldn't find out suddenly. He was curious, and a bit disgusted, at the way she threw such a childish tantrum.

"_Why _me," she grumbled loudly, walking over and kicking the chair once more. "Why, why, why, why, _why always me?_" She growled and dealt a swift kick to the chair, finally succeeding in knocking it over as well as hurting her socked foot. Her vision seemed to bleed red, and she went to continue kicking the chair when suddenly she slipped on a paper and fell to the floor on her tail with a yelp. After a moment of silence, she let out a frustrated groan and grabbed the paper as if to crumple it up, but then she hesitated as she looked at it carefully. She seemed to realize that it wouldn't do any good to take out her anger on someone's good work, and so her fury quickly deflated as she stood up to pick up the chair and the papers. Such a quick change of moods was unexpected, and the hedgehog just blinked as he watched her. Such a strange female indeed.

The silence was broken when the two-tailed fox-boy, of all people, walked in to see her bending over in order to pick up the papers. He gasped and ran over, asking, "What happened?"

"Err…stray breeze." She seemed reluctant to let him know the truth, scratching the back of her neck nervously. "I guess I opened the door too hard or something."

Shadow rolled his eyes. 'Who would believe that?' The fox certainly didn't seem to, but he just let it go as he went to help her. After everything was back in its place, he perked up and asked her excitedly, "So, ready for the mission tomorrow?"

She groaned, as if she knew that he would ask but was secretly hoping he wouldn't. "_No,_" she said honestly, flopping down into the chair with a sigh. "I wanna stay here with _you_ guys!"

The fox rolled his eyes at her, but he assured her, "I'm pretty sure that we don't need_ you _here to baby-sit us, Shadowpaw."

He seemed a bit disdained when she reached over to ruffle his bangs a little. "Aww, but I _love _to play with you!" She grinned with some inside thought. "Besides, who's going to keep _me _out of trouble?"

The words that Kussia had said to him came to mind again, and he grimaced at the thought. 'Yes, who, indeed…' He nearly wished that the fox would come as well.

"Well, I've heard that Rouge is coming with you guys." As soon as he had said it, he was answered with another groan. He frowned, as if not getting what was wrong with her. "What? I thought you were friends."

"Well, you can _keep_ thinking that," she muttered a bit sarcastically, "but it sure as hell ain't coming true anytime soon!" She sighed and put her chin on her hand while resting her elbow on the arm of the chair. "Personally, I think _you _are a better technical support than_ anyone_."

"Aww…_Shadowpaw…_" He seemed a bit embarrassed, looking down and getting a bit flushed in the face. "You're just saying that!"

"No, I'm not!" She smiled at him, a gesture that looked sincere to both males there. "With you here, at least something gets done!" Then, she rolled her eyes and added, "Besides, all that _Rouge _is good for is pointing out who has the hottest ass."

Shadow filed that bit of information into the back of his head as Tails protested to her use of language. "Aww, grow up, kiddo," she told him with a grin, "if you have _Sly _as your role model, you'll be hearing_ worse_." When he didn't seem to get it, she laughed and told him not to worry about it, before tilting her head and asking, "Hey, since _I_ won't be here, what will _you _do?"

"Well," he seemed to swell up with pride, "while you're gone, the Alpha Rex has assigned me to take care of both Lion Ranks Sonic and Knuckles!" His smile grew brighter when she praised him, telling him 'good job' for getting such 'tough knuckleheads'. Then, when he remembered he needed to go to meet them, she smirked and said, "What, are you going to kiss-up to them or something?" She laughed as he whined and pouted at her. "I'm just teasing. Alright," she started to shoo him out, "go on and 'do your duty'!"

Tails giggled a little. "You said 'duty'!" She rolled her eyes, mumbling about 'childish old souls' before finally kicking him out. She shut the door behind him with a sigh, mumbling, "I'm going to miss him being around," and then turned around to do whatever she was really here to do. That was when her eyes seemed to finally notice him, and her face hardened quickly as her smile fell immediately from her expression. It was amazing how her personality changed so quickly, especially when Shadow or the kids were around her, getting opposite reactions from either or. She walked stiffly back to the desk on the other side of the room, sat down, pulled out papers from a desk, and started to work on them. A silence soon developed between the two, thick with tension and anger bubbling underneath the atmosphere on her side.

When she proved to not do anything else interesting, he went back to his own paperwork and continued to fill them out. Since it was technically lunchtime, no one else was in the hangar, leaving them both peace and quiet (well, sort of) to do their work in. It wasn't long until he was finished, putting the files back into their places and cleaning up his workspace. When everything was settled, he turned to the exit and began to leave. An unexpected voice, however, made him stop.

"Let's get something straight."

He stood there, not turning to face her, as he heard the gruff tone of voice she used. 'If she spoke an octave lower, she could be mistaken for a guy.' Not taking up the bait she silently laid out, he said instead, dodging the bullet, "I don't believe there is anything to get. You and I are partners. That is it." He then went to continue his pace to the door, but she then stunned him slightly when her voice rose to shout, "No!" He stopped once more, this time turning to face her and better see her emotions. She glared at him angrily, her hands clenched tightly to her side.

She raised a fist to point lividly at him. "_You listen to me._" The force and fury in her voice left no room for arguments. She narrowed her eyes at him. "I _will not _let _anyone, _man or beast, command me or tell me what to do. I do what I want, _without any thought_ for_ anyone else. _I _need __**no one**_"

He did not answer her at first, although there was no question given, instead searching her for any source of her anger. He was extremely good at reading emotions, and he could tell that there were many hidden feelings underneath her anger. He thought he saw flickers of what seemed to be pain in her amber orbs, as well as – was that sorrow? Disbelief? All that he could see clearly, though, was that she was pissed and letting it out on him. Not letting his stare waver, he kept his gaze steady as they had an unofficial staring contest. He was going to show her that, no matter what, he would not back down.

"I suppose so," he finally said, almost sneering at the triumphant look in her eyes, and quickly went to squash that confidence. "I've heard all about your over-confidence and difficulty in dealing with your _superiors_." He watched with satisfaction when her eyes went ablaze once again. He let a smirk grace his features. "I will _personally _see to the breaking of your _free-spirit._" When he was satisfied with how things were, he turned away and began to walk off when another thought came to mind. He paused at the doorway, not allowing it to close, as he sneered, "You know, we really wouldn't need authority if we didn't have idiots like you."

Even if he wasn't facing her, he could pretty much hear her scowl, and his smirk grew more triumphant when she shoved him aside to get past. He watched with pleasure as she stomped off, and he couldn't help but chuckle a little at the prospect of getting her angry more often. It was actually rather…_fun._ Like winning a game. And watching her vent off her anger was _quite _a prize, indeed.

As he stood there, Kussia came up and walked through the door down the hallway. He noticed the hedgehog over there, and he walked over to see his grin, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Having fun?"

"Yes, Kussia," Shadow's smirk grew even bigger. "I am rather enjoying this _challenge._"


	6. Departure for Changes

_**The Perfect Harmony of Hearts**_

**Well, the dedications for Chapter Five are as follows:**

** Mema & AmyAddict1 (as usual),**

**me mum and dad,**

**me pals (internet or real life),**

**me laptop (I LOVE YOU hugs laptop),**

**me food (YUM!),**

**and you! **_**  
**_

**Chapter Five**

**Departure for Changes**

"Hey, Kussia!"

"Why, hello, Sly. What brings you around this way?"

"Well, the noise of your whistling and happiness would have attracted many other spectators if only there _was_ anyone else on this floor, Kussia."

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed."

"So, what _is _it that has put you in this wonderful mood? Did anything _special _happen last night?"

"_No,_Sly. Not even your antics could ruin the mood I'm in right now."

"So, what _is _it, then?"

"Well, other than the fact that the coffee machine in my office is now working properly, I have something _else _to look forward to every day."

"What?_What?_ You _know _that I don't like to be left in the dark, Kussia."

"Oh, I do know."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Very much, indeed, Sly."

"So, will you _please _enlighten me on the _glorious _occasion that has lifted your spirits above the clouds?"

"Do you know what today is?"

"…_Tuesday?_"

"Yes…_and…?_"

"Erm…your…great-grandmother's birthday?"

"Get real, Sly. Now you're just irritating."

"Some say that's my middle name. Oh! I think I know what it is now."

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Now that isn't nice, Kussia! Just because Shadowpaw is leaving with her team doesn't mean we should break out the beer and have a party!"

"I think so; all of my troubles are leaving on that mission! And, I though that with you, _anything _was an excuse to bring out the beer."

"_Almost_anything. _Certainly _not the departure of a _lovely _young lady such as Tiger Rank Shadowpaw M. Fur."

"You think _any _lady is lovely. Like that Rouge-lady you sent with the team."

"Well, you have to admit, although she has a rather nasty temper, Shadowpaw's _quite _a nice companion."

"In your case, in more ways than one…"

"Now, I didn't say anything, Kussia! There you go, jumping to conclusions again."

"I don't even have to _jump,_ Sly. They're right there in front of me, and they're _not _just conclusions. They're facts."

"You're so cruel, you squirrelly fellow, you."

"Says the man who is vulpine in nature as well as a _pig._"

"Oh, shut up. You're just jealous that I have all the ladies and _you_don't."

"I don't have _time_ for that."

"_Any guy _has time for the _ladies. _Otherwise I doubt his manhood."

"More like doubting the lack of manhood."

"Oh, come on. You have to at least like _looking _at them."

"(Sigh)..."

"Now you aren't speaking to me? Hmm, there _must _be one, then…"

"Whatever. Draw your own conclusions, but I plead the Fifth."

"Kussia, you're the leader of a damned organization trying to prevent the demise of all life on Mobius from power-hungry aliens that could obliterate us all. You _have _no 'Fifth'."

"(Sigh) And there you go, trying to ruin my good mood again. Go away, Sly. I'm pretty sure you have work to do _somewhere_."

"_Well_, now that you mention it…"

"Ugh, I don't want details. Just _go._"

"Alright, I'm leaving! But remember! Women are fragile creatures!"

"If you said that to Shadowpaw's face, I would have to be digging my friend's grave."

"Oh, so you admit that I'm your friend? I am touched, honestly. Although you said that with a grin on your face."

"Just be glad I'm not throwing you to the wolves right now."

"Kussia, we _are _the wolves."

"Then go whistle at the lady-wolves, like you do anyway."

"Alright! If you insist!"

"Honestly, what will I do with you?"

"Feed me, worship me, kiss the ground I walk on."

"I thought you were out! _Get!_"

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

The hedgehog sat up from his bed and stretched his arms out over his head, grunting slightly in his morning ritual. He relaxed a little and let his head fall back down to the sweet oblivion of his pillow, closing his eyes for a moment, before suddenly they snapped back open as he groaned. Today was the day he left for his mission with his 'team'. He personally would rather just go back to sleep and forget the whole thing, but he knew that he had to face this thing head-on or otherwise it would bite him in the ass later.

That thought brought his thoughts to the feline and his new 'technical support'. 'I suppose I should go and meet them at the hangar,' he sighed mentally as he got up and got the pack that held his things. Changing into his specialist suit which he had left out at the foot of his bed, he looked to the door when someone knocked on it. He cleared his throat and asked in an authority-demanding tone, "Who is it?"

"It's me, Mr. Shadow!" He sighed at the familiar eager voice at his door. Not able to summon the anger and force it against her, he grabbed his helmet and walked over to the door and opened it to look down at the rabbit that waited there. She smiled at him, tilting her head like she usually did whenever she was happy (or curious), and said, "I wanted to see you off on your mission, Mr. Shadow! I'm going to miss you lots!"

He inwardly sighed at the bright and sunny rabbit before him. 'If I had half as much as inspiration and energy as her, the Kingdom would have been destroyed by now.' He shook his head at himself before stiffly patting her on the head with an awkward, "Thanks." She just beamed up at him as he closed the door behind him and locked it for the last time until his return. Staring at the cold metal door for a moment longer, he shook himself out of it and proceeded to walk down the hallway behind the skipping bunny, wondering whether his 'companions' would be getting seen off like he was. He pictured the fox-boy hugging the feline and crying his eyes out, but he shook the image from his head as he approached the hangar doors and stepped into the harsh light of the building.

It didn't take him long to find his 'companions'; he saw a group standing over at one of the exits for the transport Zoids and, knowing he had to do it sooner or later, sighed and began to walk over to them. He noticed that Sly and Kussia were there as well. 'The more the merrier,' he said sarcastically to himself, wanting to sneer at the way he tried to reassure himself. He was really pathetic, wasn't he?

'…No.' He almost stopped in his tracks, but he did slow his pace a little. 'This hedgehog is _not _pathetic. That would be the feline and blue nuisance's jobs.' Smirking to himself, he began to walk faster with a new vigor and nearly grinned at the group as they turned to look at him.

The two that he had just spoken of were surprisingly _both _there; Shadowpaw stood next to the blue hedgehog, if a bit awkwardly, as she glared at the approaching specialist. Next to Sonic, a red echidna he recognized was one of his friends stood with his arms crossed as he examined him. The blue hedgehog, though, only grinned at him and was probably preparing to call him that dreadful nickname. He almost shivered. 'Maybe there _is _an upside to this,' he admitted as he got within earshot of them, close enough to hear the chatter going on in the group.

"So _remember, _my number is on your communicator and helmet-visor as well, so if you need _anything, _you can call me! And also, here's a few manuals and such to Zoid maintenance in case there's something you don't get, and here's that cookbook you've been asking for, too! Is there any –"

"Alright!" Shadowpaw snapped at the fox-boy talking at warp-speed, but when he flinched away she sighed and said softly, "You act like a worried mother hen over her clutch of eggs or something!" She smiled at him reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"Funny," Tails muttered to himself, "how _you're _the one that's leaving and yet you're reassuring _me._"

She just smiled and patted him on the head, but was then suddenly overwhelmed in a bone-crushing hug from the bat beside her, who said with a wink, "Besides, I won't let _anything _bad happen to her!" She didn't seem to realize that she was choking her charge, the feline's face starting to turn blue.

Sly coughed and said to Kussia and Shadow who just walked up, "And she's doing _such _a lovely job already." Both nodded in agreement, watching as Rouge let her out of her death-grip only to let her fall onto the floor gasping for air through her bruised windpipe. Shadow sneered slightly at the sight, which she quickly saw and stood up tall to narrow her eyes at him. Since the Alpha Rex and Chief of Mechanics and Technology was standing just an arm's length away, they couldn't engage in any type of 'conversation, and so they just resorted to glaring at each other as the others continued to chat.

Finally, Kussia cleared his throat to get everyone's attention, which he did as they all fell silent and looked at him expectantly. "Now," he began, looking at the 'three-man team', "I do believe that it is time for these three to depart on their mission." When he turned to them and respectively put his hand up in salute, they all clicked their heels together and returned the gesture correspondingly, even the little ones (although a bit gawkily). After his hand fell back to his side, however, Shadow was surprised to suddenly get a warm hug from Cream, who had tears in her eyes as she sniffed, "I'm gonna miss you, Mr. Shadow!" She looked absolutely heartbroken that he was leaving, which made him blink in shock as the feline coughed to probably cover up a snicker. After a moment of her clinging onto him, he cautiously patted her head like he had done back at his door before she let go of him, wiping her eyes with her sleeves. He then glared at his 'partner' with a barely contained hatred, who returned it with one of her own, before their attention returned to the Alpha Rex when he nodded to them and said, "Well, good luck on your mission."

Shadowpaw smirked and put her hands on her hips arrogantly. "Don't worry, squirrelly-butt! _I _can handle it." She jerked her head in Shadow's general direction and added, "I don't know about _these two, _but _I'm _ready for _anything!_"

"'Anything', huh?" Rouge sounded doubtful, before she suddenly wrapped her arm around Shadowpaw's neck and dragged her in the direction of their carrier Zoid with a calm, "Come on, Ms. Hot-Air, we're gonna miss our flight."

"Agh!" She winced as she was nearly choked once more. "Could you stop doing that?"

"Nope."

Kussia sighed as the two disappeared into the Zoid, and he looked seriously at Shadow and ordered him, "I meant what I said before. I want you to watch her closely. She's…" He hesitated, not able to find the right word for it. "…Unstable."

He nodded, knowing from his own secret experience what he meant. He then saluted Kussia once more before doing about-face and walking off to his carrier Zoid, the oversized Hover Cargo. Rather elementary for its purpose, really, but it would do. Personally, he'd rather it was painted a black-and-red theme instead of the painfully-familiar blue and eggshell white, but he had no say in the matter. As he left, though, he heard the last words of his commanding officers drift on the wind:

"See, Kussia? I'm not the _only _one to call you 'squirrelly' in some way or another!"

"Oh, shut up."

Finally, the door behind him closed, also shutting his last escape. He hesitated before going up to the bridge where the other two probably were, instead wondering if he should go to the living quarters to find his room early. Maybe if he did it first, he could get the better room. But, he knew that he should also check out the bridge and such, and if he didn't appear immediately he would look like a coward. And he didn't want that. So, with a heavy sigh, he walked up the many stairs to the place that (indeed) held the two females as they looked out of the window at the people waving at them. Rouge glanced at him and smiled, motioning for him to come over beside them, but Shadowpaw just scowled without even looking at him and scooted to the corner of the window farthest from him. He nearly rolled his eyes, but he resisted the urge and instead caved in to the bat's beckoning to look down at the group giving them farewell. He slightly grimaced at the sight of Cream jumping up and down and waving like mad, no doubt yelling many good-byes to 'Mr. Shadow' beside the fox-boy cupping his hands over his mouth. He could barely hear a 'keep out of trouble' from the boy, and he heard a snort come from the bat beside him, but she then winced and muttered 'ouch' when Shadowpaw elbowed her in the ribs.

After a moment of silence, Rouge finally walked over to the controls for the Hover Cargo and sat down in the pilot's seat. Pressing various buttons and pulling levers, she started up the engine of the Zoid and began to pull out of the hangar. It took several minutes to get completely out of it, since it was better to warm up the engines first, but they eventually made it out and began their journey through the seemingly endless desert before them.

"Well," Rouge sighed and looked at the two of them, "it seems that, from now on, we'll be the only company for each other!"

Immediately, both Shadow and the feline groaned loudly, which made the bat blink and ask slowly, "What? Was it something I said?" Not answering her question, Shadowpaw grumbled that she was going to call Tails right now and quit the room as quickly as possible, to which the hedgehog quickly followed suit, leaving the bat alone in the bridge. Shadow heard her sigh softly before the door closed behind him with a hiss.

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

"Uh-uh." Shadowpaw stood with her arms crossed in the doorway as Shadow towered over her threateningly. "You are _not _getting the biggest room."

"Why not?" He sounded a bit irritated, as if he should have known this would happen. She growled at him, agitated by his persistence, and said, "Because I've already told you, this is _mine!_"

"I'm the one that stepped into it first," he said with a frown and a glare, but it went unheeded by the feline as she scoffed and put up her side of the argument. She countered, "But _I'm _the one who claimed it first!"

He sneered at her, which only served to get her angrier, and said, "I am a _superior rank _to you." His smirk grew more satisfied when her eyes blazed angrily, and she growled and jabbed her finger into his chest (where she could feel the white fluffy patch of fur hiding underneath the specialist suit) as she hissed, "I thought I told you that I wouldn't _bow down _to _'superiority'._" She spat out the word as if it were poison, dark things coming to her mind that she would like to say to those who were 'superior'.

"Now, now, children," Rouge's voice floated down to them from the top of the stairs, and they both glanced up to see her walking down to greet them. She smiled slyly at the two and asked, "What are you two fighting over, anyways? It's only been about thirty minutes since we've left HQ."

Shadowpaw pointed at the room behind her and said, "I would like you to help explain why he can't have this room." After a moment, she realized she looked rather like a little child, but at the moment she didn't care. She just didn't want him to have the room.

"Oh?" The bat seemed to consider the idea for a moment, her mouth still in that devious smile, before she raised both of her hands up like the representation of the Libra sign. "I don't think I can decide!" Then, she smirked at them and suggested, "Since neither of you can choose, perhaps _I _should have that room?"

"_No,_" Shadowpaw immediately said, but the hedgehog seemed to consider the idea. When he looked at her angry face he smirked, and then looked bat at the bat and agreed, "That would probably be best. Go on ahead."

"_What?_" The feline sputtered, her eyes wide at the hedgehog backing down so easily, only moving aside when Rouge tapped her shoulder gently with her finger to ask her politely to get out of the way. In a sort of shock-induced trance, she looked at Shadow only to see him smirk at her and walk off to the door of one of the other rooms, and then it hit her. She clenched her hands into fists and gnashed her teeth. He had done that only so _she _wouldn't get the room! "That selfish little…" She continued to grumble like that as she took the next door down, glaring at the plain walls and uninteresting bedspread. In the confines of her own room, she whined softly, "But the pillows were so _soft…_" She groaned and fell onto the bed, trying to get the same feeling from the pillows there as she did from just looking at the big bedroom's, but when she failed miserably she scowled and growled lowly, "It's all _his _fault. Damn hedgehog…" She rolled over onto her back to stare at the ceiling, but stopped halfway when she saw a doorway that seemed out of place. "There's a bathroom down the hall…" Thinking that it may be the closet, she got up from her (painstakingly plain) bed and opened the door to inspect it.

She froze when she entered Shadow's new room, _just _as he was taking off his specialist suit. It was halfway down, showing off the silver cross he had around his neck, his fluffy white chest and strong arms as well as the sweat he had developed under the outfit. He looked as if he had just went on a very long run. He glanced up at the noise of the door opening, raising an eyebrow at the shocked look on her face. After a moment, she gasped and quickly slammed the door shut, putting her back up against the door as she stared wide-eyed at the wall opposite of it. After a moment of deep breathing, she rushed over and buried her face into the covers of her bed, wanting to kick herself repeatedly until she was sure she would _never _do that again but being too tired to do so. She noticed that she heard another door open, the one that went to the hallway, and she heard Rouge's voice float into the room. "Oh, and by the way, there are doors that connect each room to the ones right next to it, for emergency purposes."

Shadowpaw picked up her flushed face enough to glare and throw a pillow at her as she shouted, "_Now _you tell me!" Then, she tried to smother herself with the pillow as she let Rouge digest the information the way she wanted to. Sure enough, in no time at all, the bat's laughter sounded through the whole of the quarters, no doubt even through to Shadow's room as well.

"Did you get an unexpected surprise?"

"_Shut up!_"


	7. Mysteries in the Bedroom

_**Chapter Six's Dedications are:**_

_**AmyAddict1 & Mema, plus**_

_**meh Mumz and Popz**_

_**my dorky bro**_

_**my best fwend**_

_**my psychotic robo kitten**_

_**and my awesome-ness. **_

**Chapter Six**

**Mysteries in the Bedroom**

"I want a full report on the boundaries of the Robotnik Empire, _now!_"

"_Everything is fine, Creator, except for enemy disturbance near the Crusaders/Robotnik boundary._"

"_What?!_ Details, please!"

"_It seems that a party of three specialists have been dispatched to do a border check_."

"Any news on the occupants of the vessel?"

"_Yes, actually; inside the Hover Cargo, there are two Zoids: a Lightning Saix and a Shadow Fox. Scanners show that the three occupants are skilled pilots._"

"Have you hacked into the database and found the identities of these pilots? I want _answers._"

"_Yes, sending files over now…_"

"Hmm…oh, ho! So, it seems this'll be _very _interesting, indeed! Any information on their _exact _mission details?"

"_No, but we are doing it at this very moment._"

"Good! I want the results as soon as possible, but _don't _get caught; it will be hard to break their code if they change it _again._"

"_Of course. If you wish it, so it will be._"

"Perfect! Ah, those Crusader whelps don't know what they're missing! Self-controlled Zoids and robots programmed to do your bidding…why did they ever turn my ideas down before?"

**(A/N: Not very chatty this chapter, eh?) **

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_T_-**A**-I-_L_-**S**

Shadowpaw sighed as she walked into the 'kitchen' area of the Hover Cargo. It was only the evening, about six hours after their departure, and yet she was already wishing they would just turn back. Believe it or not, she actually missed her lackluster room and the noisy children there. Deciding that she was going to call 'her kiddo' again, she picked up her communicator to dial his number when she heard the bat ask her, "Would you like something to eat?"

After a moment, where she scanned the room to see that the hedgehog was, unfortunately, there as well, she scowled and grumbled, "Whatever…" She sat down, finished dialing, and put it up to her ear as she made sure that her gaze stayed on the wall and not the hedgehog leaning on it. After a while of impatiently waiting for him to pick up, she brightened up when the ringing stopped and smirked when she heard him sigh and say, "It's only been a few hours, Shadowpaw. Stop spazzing out."

"I'm not spazzing out." She wanted to laugh, but the hedgehog there seemed to dampen her mood slightly. "I'll have you know that I'm sitting perfectly calm in a chair, waiting for some food."

"Nothing like a good helping of food to fight away the homesickness!"

She finally did laugh, although it sounded a bit sad in her opinion. "Yeah, but how could I be homesick if I never really left home? My home is with my Zoid."

She could practically hear him roll his eyes and _did _hear him scoff. "If you love the Zoid so much, then why don't you marry it? Geez…or at least sleep in the cockpit."

Smirking, she said, "As persuasive as that sounds, I like my _plain, normal bed _better, thank you." She scowled at Shadow, who only rolled his eyes before returning to ignoring her. Rolling hers as well, she nearly fell over when Tails scolded, "Stop scowling; I can virtually see you doing it. Speaking of which, can you please, please, _please _turn on the visual this time?"

She sighed, relenting with a 'fine', before putting the communicator down on the table and pressing a button on the side. After a moment of fizzling, a nearly transparent screen appeared before her with the fox's grinning face. He cheered, "Yay! You finally upgraded your communicator! Sorry, but your old one was _ancient. _I could barely see you."

"Whatever, wiz-kid." She rolled her eyes, to which Tails stuck his tongue out, and she smirked and teased, "And I thought you were mature?"

He crossed his arms and pouted, but not before shooting back, "I should say the same to _you._" He grinned triumphantly when she scowled, then frowned and glanced around. "Where's the other two?"

"Right here," Rouge answered him herself, popping up next to Shadowpaw to smile at him. "How's my little fox boy doing?"

"Great!" He smiled brightly, but before he could ask where the hedgehog was Shadowpaw added resentfully, "Shadow's here, too. He's just hiding behind the screen." She was satisfied when he glared at her, and was even more pleased when she got him to argue, "I am _not _hiding."

Tails rolled his eyes at the two, but then was abruptly overwhelmed by a light tan blur when suddenly Cream appeared on the screen. She had tackled the fox and was now sitting on top of him as she asked excitedly, "Is Mr. Shadow there?" She looked so happy, Shadowpaw couldn't find it in her heart to refuse her, and so she sighed and turned the screen to face him with a grumbled, "Yeah, there he is…"

"Mr. Shadow!" She smiled at him, tilting her head like she always seemed to do. "How are you? Is your journey going swell?"

"Only _you _would use the word 'swell'," they all heard Tails muffled voice, and she gasped as if only just now realizing he was under her and leaping off to help him up. She gave him a hug in apology, and then they both turned to the screen as the fox said politely, "Hello, Shadow. Hopefully Shadowpaw hasn't tried to kill you yet."

"_Rat,_" the feline scowled at him. Leave it to him to try to make her look bad. Her eyes widened, however, when she heard a familiar voice enter the room. Well, two of them, really.

"_Hey! _That's not nice to say!"

"Sly, she wasn't talking about me."

"I know! I was talking about the little guy!"

She heard the Alpha Rex scoff and grumble 'you never stick up for me' before finally his backwards image appeared on the screen from where she stood. She went around the table so that she could see him properly just as he said, "Nice to see you're alive, Shadow."

Shadowpaw scowled. "Why is everyone on _his _side?"

"Because we know he wouldn't attack someone out of anger," Sly said knowingly just before he popped up on the screen. It was getting rather crowded there, actually. She even heard Tails complain, "Since when did everyone get interested in my calls?"

Sly smiled down at him and answered, "Since it was answered by the _lovely _young Ms. Shadowpaw. And by the way, _hello, _Shadowpaw." He turned to smile at her with one of his usual charming smiles. "How has your journey faired so far?"

"Oh, save it for the ladies that _care_." She rolled her eyes and walked away from the screen after saying she'd 'be right back', and listened to the conversation as she rummaged through the fridge.

"So, I will be expecting a report from _each _of you every other day."

"But that's too frequent, Kussia! Perhaps every third day?"

"Why would we give them a third day?"

"Well, what will _seriously _happen in _two _days? You have to have at least_ three _days before something interesting happens."

"Whatever. Oh, and Shadowpaw, why haven't you decided on your symbol yet? It's been a week since I reminded you about it."

"I said 'hold on'!" She yelled, halfway into the fridge as she crossed her fingers and muttered, "Please be here, please be here, please oh please oh_ please _be here…" She brightened up and said cheerfully, "_Yes! _It's _here!_" Pulling out a couple of cans, she set to work on opening them as she hummed happily. She was in a better mood now.

Meanwhile, the orange fox was getting a little irked that everyone was using _his_ communicator to talk to the team, and so he made a big decision.

"_Oh, _I think the communicators…breaking…up…" He made static sounds with his mouth before telling her, "Gotta go! _Call…later!_" Then, he pushed the button on the communicator to cut off the link between the two, and the screen dissolved into the air as he listened to the angry voices all around him. He smiled as he thought, 'That's something that _Shadowpaw _would do…' Then, a look of horror came across his face, and he gasped, "Oh, no! She's rubbing off on me!" He then ran from the room, not stopping to explain to anyone staring at him why he was screaming.

_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

"Shadowpaw?" She knocked on the door twice, then waited for a response from the feline. Frowning, she knocked on it again and finally heard a grunt from within. Assuming that it was a signal to come in, she smirked before turning the doorknob and stepping inside. It didn't take long to spot her, laying flat on her stomach once more with her head buried under the pillows on the bed. The bat sighed and started, "_Shadowpaw…_"

"I don't want to hear it," she interrupted her, a little muffled. A little annoyed at being cut off, she huffed and argued, "But you aren't doing anything productive!"

"Yes, I have!" Without getting up, she waved her arms around at the room before they flopped back down beside her. Sure enough, her room _was _a bit better; instead of all of her things cluttering the floor, it was all neatly organized around the room in an attempt to make it more homey. It was nice and all, but…

"That's not what I meant." Rouge sighed, the only sign that she was getting a bit irked at the feline's inability to leave her room. She hadn't left it since she withdrew in it with a few cans of tuna, which were left empty in the wastebasket she noticed when she stepped in. She seemed determined not to socialize with anyone on the Cargo. She walked over and sat down on the bed, deciding to keep bothering her until she caved in, and said, "Well, since you won't come out of your room, I'll just stick around!"

"_What?_" At that remark, Shadowpaw finally lifted her head out from under the mound of pillows she had collected to stare at her in bewilderment. She asked her frankly, "Why?"

Rouge smirked at the dazed look on her face and answered, "_Because _I would like to know that I at least have _one _friend on this ship!" Then, she crossed her arms and added slyly, "Although I'd like to have that hedgehog as something _more_ than a friend…" At the feline's scoff, she laughed and patted her leg. "I'm just kidding! Now," she sat cross-legged and got herself comfortable, "let's say we get to know each other."

Again, Shadowpaw asked the _ingenious _question, "_Why?_" Then, as an afterthought, she pointed out, "Shouldn't you be driving this thing?"

Rouge smirked. "It's on autopilot. Now, come on, let's play a little game called Truth-and-No-Dare."

"What's that?"

"It's like half of Truth-or-Dare; without the 'dare' part."

"_Oh…_"

"How about we do it in _my _room, though?"

She had hooked her. "_Absolutely!_"

_S_**-H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

Shadow had the pleasure to hear his door connected to Rouge's new room creak open slightly as he did more paperwork (A/N: I think that's all he does[sticks tongue out Work, work, and more work!). He didn't turn his head to look, but he did discreetly turn his ears slightly to listen to whoever it was. They were silent except for their quiet breathing, and then they tiptoed back and returned to the bed before bursting into giggles. He sighed and shook his head. 'Females…'

"_Rouge! _What'd you do _that _for?!"

Of course, it wasn't the feline giggling, for the question was asked during the laughing fit.

"I was just checking to see what he was doing! Lighten up! Besides, it's harmless to wonder what other people are up to."

"Not with_ you…besides_, what if he can _hear us?_"

It was silent again, to which Shadow smirked and returned to his work, but he sighed in disdain when the bat whispered a reply, "Well, whatever, he'll just listen to us talk about _girly stuff._" It seemed she was stressing and speaking those two words a _little _too loudly to_ not _be on purpose. Immediately losing interest, he rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the papers on his desk. But, he couldn't help it when they spoke loud enough for him to hear.

"'_Girly stuff'?__**Seriously?**_"

"Well, we could always talk about _boys._"

"Isn't that under 'girly'?"

"Of course not! It's under 'single and open'."

"Ha, ha, very funny. Now, seriously, are we?"

"_No! _We're playing Truth-and-No-Dare! Are you immune to sarcasm?"

"_No; _if you listened to _me, _you would notice that I speak it quite fluently."

"Whatever, now I go first!"

A groan. "Why_ you?_"

"Because I'm older than you."

"How old?"

"Twenty-five."

"_Damn…_I'm only seventeen."

'A year younger than me,' Shadow noted, _not that he was paying attention or even__** cared.**_

"Whatever – and I thought _I_ was going first!"

"Okay, okay! Geez…control freak, much!"

"Alright…hmm, speaking of age, what's your sign?"

"_That crap?_ I don't believe in the stars and 'seeing your fate' and crap."

"Humor me."

"_Ugh…_Cancer."

"Heh, you're a disease!"

"_Shut up!_"

Shadow sighed, maybe a bit too loudly because they quieted down, and he thought, 'They are completely immature.' Eventually, after a while of him scribbling down notes to himself ('keep doors locked at all times…'), they started up again.

"Well, _I'm _a Pisces."

"Whee, _double fish. _I'm _so _jealous." A pause. "You know, I should eat you right now."

"That sarcastic tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble one day."

"So I've been told."

"Besides, _you're_ a _crab!_" She made little snipping noises to mock her. Then, she burst into laughter and added, "Or something _else…_"

"Huh?" She didn't seem to get it. "What?"

"Nothing," the bat sighed after her laughing fit was over. "The youth is wasted on the young…"

"Hey, shut up, _old lady, _thinking you're 'high and mighty' and all…"

Shadow frowned as he thought of how she detested authority entirely. Sure, he didn't like to be bossed around, either, but at least he knew better than to do something _stupid. _He was sure that _she, _however, would do something not too bright for one of her status. That was probably why she was kicked off of her team right after she got promoted. Then again, he _really _shouldn't be talking, but he ignored that fact while fixated on pondering over the strange feline. Doing so, he missed the rest of the conversation until he was brought back to reality by a loud 'thud' from the other room. He started slightly in his seat, wondering what it was before an 'oww' soon afterwards told him. He sighed and wished that something interesting would happen so that he wouldn't be stuck with two crazy females.

"What was _that _for?"

"_That, __**bat-lady**_, is for _you _talking about my _parents!_"

Now he was interested. 'Parents?' Wishing that he had heard the comment from before, he strained his ears so he wouldn't miss anything else from the two.

"Well, _sorry! _It seems I've hit a nerve…" There was a pause, in which the silence seemed a bit awkward, before the bat spoke up and asked, "So, speaking of signs, what about your symbol? I heard the Alpha Rex mention something about it while we were talking to that fox-boy." It seemed that she was smart enough not to turn over the subject of her parents yet, instead keeping that rock untouched.

The feline sighed, sounding a bit reluctant and dispirited. "Err, yeah…I…haven't figured it out yet."

"Well, make something up! I mean, look at _mine!_" Shadow rolled his eyes, remembering clearly the joker card that was on her outfit's back. "I made that up in five seconds flat! It's not so important that you have to take a _week _to figure out!"

"It's been _more_ than a week!" She got slightly louder, showing how irritated she was on the subject. At this answer, Rouge got to counter, "That's even _more _ridiculous! I mean, how long does it take to make up something and slap it onto your suit?"

"_Very long._"

"Well, it shouldn't. It's not a life-or-death situation or anything –"

"_It is to me._" Her voice was so low and dark that it seemed to leave the bat speechless for a moment or two. Shadow was a bit taken aback at her tone of voice that left no room for arguments, much like the one she used back in the hangar yesterday. She was more serious than a heart-attack, and she might have one if she got too worked up about it. 'But why _is _she?' He remembered Kussia's words from that morning, as well as the ones he had used when they were called to his office to learn they were partners with her response to them.

"_I meant what I said before. I want you to watch her closely. She's…unstable."_

"_What about your parents'? Why not take up their symbols?"_

"_I'd rather not…pick those up, Kussia. Leave them be."_

'What is she hiding?' His curiosity only seemed to grow the more he heard from this cat. What was her secret? Who were her parents? And why was she so edgy and defensive?

"Err…" Rouge had finally gotten the courage to try to speak and dissipate the perilous atmosphere of the room. "Well, I hope you aren't as indecisive with your _battling tactics _as you are with this."

"_Hey!_" The murkiness had disappeared in her voice to be replaced by anger. "I'll have you know I could probably beat Mr. White-and-Fluffy in the room next door!"

As Shadow rolled his eyes and scoffed at the idea, Rouge laughed heartily, obviously entertained by the idea. The feline didn't respond to this, being silent as she probably stared at the wall or something else mysterious like that.

Of course, he liked mysteries. He liked to figure them out.

After the laughter died down, he heard the bat start questioningly, "Wait… 'White-and-Fluffy'? Where'd _that _come from?" To that question, she received no answer, and it was silent for a while before something in there made the bat start laughing again (probably the look on the feline's face). It was only that sound that covered up Shadow's own chuckling.

He was actually looking forward to this mission.


	8. Smoothing Down Frayed Edges

_**Dudes, you KNOW basically who I dedicate this too. Just...CHILL, okay? (Yeah, I'm too lazy to type it each and every time)  
**_

**Chapter Seven**

**Smoothing Down Frayed Edges**

"_Doom! Black Doom!_"

"**What is it **now?"

"_It is the feline! It – err – she is not at her base anymore! I have spied her transportation vessel out in the desert! …May I exterminate her?_"

"**No! How many times must I remind you? You are to **watch **her, Hawk, and **watch** alone! And if anything happens to her…**"

"_O-Of course, O Honorable Black Doom! I would _never _go against your word! It would pain me to –_"

"Enough! **I have had enough of your whining. Go help the scavengers if you want to be useful!**"

"_Of course, Master Doom! Whatever you say, sir!_"

"…**He is gone. Come back in, Oak.**"

"_**Yes, Black Doom.**_"

"**Now, I want you and a few of my other warriors to go and confront the feline's party, but **only **to test her. I do **not **want her dead. Understand?**"

"_**Yes, sir. Transparently, sir.**_"

"**Good; it is relieving to know that at least **some **of my warriors aren't complete imbeciles.**"

"_**Thank you for complimenting, sir, but…shall I take that Hawk for the meeting? Certainly you would want to see her reaction to his arrival?**_"

"…**It is a tantalizing offer, but…I'd prefer to wait a bit longer. To examine her as she is. No doubt that the confrontation with the Hawk would greatly affect and change her.**"

"_**Of course, sir. As you wish.**_"

"**Good. Now, round up your group and depart immediately.**"

"_**Right on it, sir!**_"

**(A/N: Not very chatty **this **chapter, either, eh?)**

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-_W_

To Shadowpaw's deep and utter misfortune, the next morning she walked into the kitchen as soon as Rouge walked out and noticed too late that Shadow was in there as well. She wanted to immediately do about-face and walk off, but then it would look like she was retreating, and she _never _retreated (unless yelled at by someone via radio). At least, she couldn't leave all of a sudden; she had to do something as if that was the reason for her to come in and then make a hasty…withdrawal…to not look cowardly. And that's what she planned to do.

But then again, nothing she's planned out before has worked out, so why should it now?

Shadow didn't fully notice her until she sighed heavily and walked over to the fridge to get something. He was, once again, immersed in paperwork ('am I the only one who does this? I don't see Rouge or that _feline _ever doing _their _paperwork…') and working at the biggest table they had in the Hover Cargo, right there in the kitchen. He noticed as he looked up how tense she appeared just leaning over to look deeper into the fridge, although he suspected it was really only a means to an end so she wouldn't have to look at _him_. A bit satisfied that she didn't want to be near him, he finally registered that she was wearing casual clothes; sure, she had worn some before, but not like this baggy dark brown shirt (obviously fit for a guy two or so sizes bigger than her) and loose white sweatpants. It was as if she planned to crash on the couch and be lazy all day instead of do their job, while he on the other hand wore his specialist suit (he expected to go into battle at any moment). He noticed that she didn't wear black much, a bit surprising thinking about her personality and taste, but she was often seen with white. Slightly puzzled over the fact, when she straightened up with a few cans of tuna or some other type of fish and made off no doubt to go to her room, he realized the perfect way to torture her.

"Wait," he stopped her at the door with his voice, and when she turned her head to glance over her shoulder he offered, "you should open those with a can opener, you know."

She stared at him, smirking at her with some hidden motive, and she knew that he was setting her up for something. Otherwise he wouldn't _obviously _request her presence in the kitchen (although he didn't say it directly). Trying to dodge the bullet he threw at her, she countered, "But I can use my claws." In demonstration, she raised her hand, and sharp claws came from her fingertips, looking like mini-daggers that would cause misfortune upon anyone who angered her.

'Ah, so she's dangerous in a Zoid _and _out.' He made a mental note not to get too close to her as he threw the ball back to her. "But that's not what they're for, now, is it?" He watched as she hesitated, going over her options in her mind. She could either refuse his offer and walk out of there, or she could be bold and linger a little while longer. Either way, he would win (at least, in his opinion); she would sacrifice her pride by running or accepting his 'advice'. Finally, his smirk deepened when she sighed and turned around, intent on using the said neglected can opener.

In her mind, she scolded in dark words for letting herself get into these types of situations all of the time. 'I always seem to get into trouble,' she muttered to herself as she located the can opener and proceeded to use it. Since it was a hand-held one, she had to do the actual opening, and she found that it probably _would _have been faster to use her claws. Also, because of her slower pace, she stayed in the room for a while longer than she liked, although _any _time spent in a room with the hedgehog wasn't exactly on the top of her 'to-do' list. But, she had already accepted her fate, and so she couldn't change it now without looking stupid. So, an uncomfortable silence fell between the two as she worked away at the cans and he (supposedly) continued his work.

After finishing with three of the cans, she figured that was enough to start with and began to eat out of one of them. Then, thinking better of it, she brought a fork out of the drawer and used it to quickly devour the fish. It was only after the first can, however, that Shadow spoke up again. _Too _soon, for her.

"Why are you standing?" His question was innocent enough, wasn't it? "You should sit down while you eat." Okay, _that _wasn't so innocent…

The only place to sit down was at the table. With him. She was about to flat out refuse his request when she stopped to think about it. He was expecting her to soon give up and let him win this battle, showing that he was _superior_ to her. She couldn't let _that _happen. Growing determined, she suddenly flashed him a false smile and agreed, "Of course." Then, she walked over and sat down, still smiling somewhat, and continued to eat, hoping that he would remain silent for at least two seconds so she could digest her tuna properly.

He had to admit, he wasn't expecting that reaction from her. He blinked, the only physical sign that he was surprised, before his eyes returned to their normal blank façade that revealed none of his thoughts. He nodded, content that she wasn't giving up so soon, and looked back down at his paperwork to finish what he had left. It was silent once again, with the rustling of papers and clinking of metal against metal the only sounds breaking it. Of course, to both of them, those sounds seemed to be able to wake the dead, their ears twitching to each one as it echoed promisingly. It was as if they were battling each other without even looking at one another, instead seeming to make as much noise as possible.

_Rustle, rustle…_

_Clink! Clink! Clink!_

If anyone else had been there, they would have probably screamed or gone insane.

Shadow was done with his paperwork before she finished her food, and he straightened the papers and set them aside before he turned slightly in his chair to watch the feline. Although she wasn't looking at him, he knew that she had her attention on him by her tense form and her ears turned ever-so-discreetly towards him. She was waiting for him to pull something, and he nearly smirked at her anxiety but resisted the urge and instead stared blankly at her. The only way that she could tell of his thoughts was the way his eyes glowed like dark embers of the night, burning intensely with some sort of eagerness and mischievousness.

Finally, she finished with the cans of tuna she had, but she wasn't so hungry anymore, and she stood up and deposited the empty cans into the bin before going to casually leave the room. Maybe it would work, and maybe he'd let her leave so she could (maybe) get some time to herself…

Maybe, maybe, maybe…so many maybes…

"Where are you going?"

'Damn, left too soon…' However, her face was calm and devoid of any disappointment as she turned to look at him and answered, "I'm going to my room." Hoping that was that, she went to leave (for the third time that morning) when his voice (once again) stopped her. "You've been in your room since we've came here, except to get a few cans of tuna." His tone was light with humor and slight taunting, but she just faced him without a word. He motioned back to the seat she had occupied and smirked. "Stay awhile, and at least _act _like you're a part of the group."

No matter how much she didn't want to, she had to give it to him for trying. After all, she was surprised that Rouge had wanted to keep her company, but _Shadow _wanting _hers?_ Yeah. 'He must be working _real _hard to break my spirit.'

In another attempt to keep her there, he raised an eyebrow and added, "Besides, I'm sure that _I'm _not the only one with work around here." Although, he was pretty sure he was the only one that _did _it. But, his comment made her scoff and reluctantly walk back to sit back down, if only to humor him a bit.

After she sat down, he turned to her and started, "Well, since we're going to be working together from now on, we should probably get to know each other a bit, to avoid any _unpleasant _situations." The way he said that didn't exactly reassure her, and neither did his smirk.

"Err…o_kay…_" 'Why does it seem like everyone is interrogating me or something?' She just shrugged and offered him to start it off before realizing that was probably a bad move.

"Hmm…" He seemed to think deeply, staring right past her ear at the wall behind her and making her a bit uneasy, before he looked at her and asked, "How about you tell me of how you became a pilot? I'm sure that it must have been something _miraculous _for you to get to the rank you have today." He had hidden an insult in there somewhere, but she ignored it to instead give him a fake smile and answer, "Of _course, _it's _no problem…_

"Well," she crossed her legs and leaned back a little in the chair she sat in, getting herself as comfortable as possible, "for starters, I was going to follow my parents' footsteps and become a pilot like they were." He listened intently, determined to not miss a word that she said. "And I was, luckily, promised by the Alpha Rex at that time to skip a few ranks, like my father did, if I could do something extraordinary." She held up her hand and counted off three fingers. "I would skip Rabbit, Deer and Eagle and go straight to Wolf rank. This promise stayed, although that Alpha Rex died and his son took over." She grimaced at the mentioning of Kussia. "He…respected his father's wish and kept the pledge.

"So, I was practicing in a Command Wolf when Sly came and told me that I was going to go out on a recon that day." She looked up thoughtfully at the ceiling, now a bit lost in her memory. "Sly had been a friend of my father, and so I guess I sorta respected him in a weird, not-listening kinda way. I thought it was a bit strange, though, when he said I would be doing it alone, considering he had always told me of the groups that patrolled the borders, but he said that it was only a small check-up, and so I believed him, got into my Saix and went out." Then, she closed her eyes and sighed, before her mouth rose into a sort of snarl. "It was only later that I found out it wasn't really just a 'check-up' and that there was a disturbance nearby they wanted me to check out." She growled and grumbled, "They could have at least _told _me, though, so I would've been more prepared…"

Shadow doubted that highly. Just from what he has witnessed, he was sure that if they had told her the truth, she would have gone in headfirst without a single, intelligent thought. He praised the fox's decision and decided to talk to him about it ASAP.

"So, I went off, just casually ambling around with the thought that there would be no trouble." She opened her eyes and smirked wryly to herself. "Obviously, I was _wrong. _Absolutely, terribly _wrong._

"My first warning was when my radar picked up something strange. Since I hadn't been allowed to go outside of the base, I wasn't exactly 'experienced' in the art of discerning friend from foe. So, I cautiously approached them, getting alarmed at how many there were. Nine Zoids in all; three groups of three, with each group having two Red Horns and a Gojulas." Shadow nearly winced, but he played it cool. In his mind, he grimaced, 'Any other Rookie would have been mowed down.'

"So," she continued unaware of his thoughts, "they approached me, and I played it cool, at first." He raised an eyebrow at her and commented, "At first?" It seemed that her voice had gotten a bit quieter at those two words.

She got a little uneasy, and so she tried to wave it off by letting her more humorous side take over. "Well, when you're surrounded by nine other Zoids and don't know what the hell to do, how are you supposed to keep your cool for long?" She didn't want to sound too stupid, but her stomach nearly dropped at the skeptical look in his eyes. Trying to seem as if it didn't affect her, she turned her chair to stare at the wall and went on, "Anyways, I attacked them after they made the first move, and I happened to get a lucky hit on a Red Horn that had confronted me. Then, after it went down I immediately pounced on a nearby Gojulas and slashed at it, and I _just happened _to knock it off of its feet. It wasn't that hard after that, and I guess a few stray shots got one of the other Gojulas in the leg, because it went down as well." She said it all with ease, not missing a single beat. "After that all happened, the others suddenly withdrew, and…well," here, she looked up at the ceiling and shrugged with a grin, "it took a bit of convincing from Sly to not follow them and finish them off."

Shadow nodded, but he seriously doubted most of what she said. All of those lucky hits…it couldn't _all _have been luck, could it? 'That's completely different from beginners' luck…' And so, he confronted her about it. "So, a few lucky shots and you sent them running? My, the Kingdom is more cowardly then I thought."

He could see the way her mouth became a thin line, and she seemed to freeze for a moment. It was almost the same effect as a rogue caught red-handed stealing something expensive. But then, she returned to her previous facade and joked, "Of course! Damn aliens, don't know a thing about us Mobians." She then turned her head to look at him and smirked. "Now, Mr. Superiority, I've spoken a little bit about me. So how's about you tell me something?"

Not liking how she quickly changed the subject, he looked at her warily and asked slowly, "What's that?"

The smirk on her face grew bigger. "Why are you such an asshole?"

He smirked back. He had to give it to her, she was quite a spitfire. He went to wipe that grin off of her face. "You _really _want to know?" When she raised an eyebrow, but nodded anyways, he chuckled a little and put his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair to put his feet on the table. "When I was five, my mother died from a disease. My father died when I was ten, and a year later I was forced to join the military by my uncle, who later was blown up by a suicide bomber." He then smirked at her, pleased with the way her grin fell so quickly. "Also, I have been forced to become the teammate of an irritable feline and an annoying bat. Now," he stared at her, "_why _do you think I'm such an asshole?"

"Uhh…err…" She kept glancing around the room, trying to find something to get back at him. But, she couldn't find anything to say that would top that. 'I mean, wow, losing his mom at five? He was still a toddler then!' She then tried to imagine him as a cute little kid, but it didn't work out so well, and so she shook it out of her mind as she looked down at her feet. 'After all, I lost _mine _when I was twelve…but _five? Ten?_' And she thought that _she _had had it bad…

Shadow was pleased to find that she wasn't so cocky anymore, with that annoying smirk off of her face. He was surprised, however, when she mumbled, "Sorry…" He blinked, and then he looked closer at her face to see that she was being _sincere_. No deceit marked her features, and she looked a bit regretful as she bit her lip. He tilted his head slightly, although she wouldn't have seen it, anyways. She was _actually sorry _for that? Wait…for _what?_

Finally, he gave his question life. "What for?" He was really curious as to what she felt guilty about.

She shuffled her feet a little, making him raise an eyebrow. She was _nervous_, too? Then, she answered softly, "I shouldn't have brought that up…" Even now, her eyes, although not directing towards him, flickered with a dying flame, as if one of her own memories had cut open an old wound again. More confused than before he had asked the question, he decided he was going to end the mystery right here and now, before she left. Since obviously mentioning peopling dying seemed to remind her of something, he settled on slowly easing the subject onto her.

"Have _you _ever had someone die?" When he saw her wince ever-so-slightly, so that only those who paid attention would notice it, he thought that maybe he had started on the wrong footing. But, she seemed to overcome it and straightened up slightly, clearing her throat and nodding. "Yes. Yes, I have." He didn't want to be going too far which would kill future chances at such information, but he couldn't help himself; he was being teased by bait right beyond his reach, and he didn't appreciate being teased. So, he asked who.

She didn't waste any time, as if it was an automotive response she had concocted for many other people. "My mother and my father. Mom was sent out on recon when Kingdom pilots attacked her, and it was ten-against-one until my father arrived, although he was too late." She sighed and shook her head. "In a blind attempt to avenge her, he exploded himself to kill the entire pack, although one did escape." Then, a fire burned deep within her amber orbs, and she said determinedly, "When I find that pilot, I will _personally_ see to his demise to finish what my father started." The way she said it made the hedgehog sure that she wouldn't go back on her promise, no matter the consequences. Then, the words from the Alpha Rex came back once more.

"_Keep an eye on her for me, will ya? I don't want her getting into any more trouble."_

"_I meant what I said before. I want you to watch her closely. She's…unstable."_

Perhaps _that _is what the squirrel meant; if they ever encountered this Kingdom pilot, she might go berserk and run head-first into battle. It would certainly be disastrous to her health, let alone her life. He couldn't let her go out of control like that, if that was what they were really dealing with. But, _how _would he go about doing that? He wasn't exactly…in control. And that story she told sounded so familiar…he was sure that he had heard it from somewhere before…

"Err…_hello?_" Shadow blinked to find the feline waving her hand in front of his face. She was frowning at him and blinking, all sorrow and anger gone to be replaced by confusion and…no…he wasn't seeing right. That wasn't worry.

He smirked impishly, deciding to get her angry again. "What, were you _worried?_"

She scowled and crossed her arms. "Of _course _not! Why would _I_ care about an arrogant rodent like _you?_" She scoffed and walked out, ignoring the hedgehog's laughter as she left the room. What she didn't notice was that he _had _indeed seen her face and its shading of pink. Surprising what he would. But, he had to admit, he liked it better when she was angry, for a fire blazed deep in her eyes that dared _anyone _to try to stop her. And he liked accepting dares. It was better than a moping, self-pitying little wretch, anyways.

Besides, it was fun to annoy her.

_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

The bat smirked and flew away before the feline could see her. She had recorded all of it on her communicator, and she was sure to send it to HQ as soon as possible. She alighted in her room and carefully tucked said device into a drawer on her bedside table, and then she laid down and pretended to be asleep in case either of the other two came in. She was sure to have Shadowpaw's mind all figured out and a plan to get more information out of her in the bag. Soon, she would be returning to HQ with a heavier pocketbook and a dazzling collection of jewels to add to her collection.

'Now, for the _hedgehog…_'


	9. Scrapping in the Sand

**( Again, too lazy! XP )**

**Chapter Eight**

**Scrapping in the Sand**

**(A/N: Err…**no** chatting this time?)**

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

That day went by quickly, or at least to Shadowpaw it did, since she returned to her room and hadn't left it since. She couldn't believe she had opened up so easily when talking to that _hedgehog. _After all, they were rivals, and she didn't need to make friends with an idiot, anyways. It would just lead to more hurt than help. She had scowled and scolded herself the entire day, skipping dinner to instead lie on her back and stare at the ceiling, thinking. The only time she exited was to go the bathroom, and that was once. Morning came so fast, she didn't notice that she hadn't slept until the alarm on her clock went off. She sat up, sighed, and slammed the snooze button before glancing at it and frowning. Since when did she set her alarm? And _why _would she set it to five in the morning? That was when she noticed the note taped to the clock's button.

_Join the living, cat. – S._

Beside the 'S', there was Shadow's symbol on it, and she rolled her eyes and crumpled the piece of paper before trying to make a basket with it. She missed, but she was too lazy to go over and pick it up, instead brooding on the way her life seemed to slowly spiral downwards. 'And I bet that he snuck in when I went to the bathroom,' she determined as she grumbled and kicked her bed in frustration. She only succeeded in hurting herself, and so she growled and grumbled, "Why can't the world just leave me alone?" She sighed and laid back down on her bed to go back to her staring, quickly finding her favorite patch of space on the ceiling that had a weird star formation-like smudge on it.

She closed her eyes after a while, weariness making her bones and muscles ache. "But no; my mother had to be attacked viciously by the Kingdom _scum, _and my father just had to be the damn hero and try to avenge her." She rolled onto her side, feeling a bit hollow inside at the thought of Shane's valiant effort to take down the enemy Zoids. "But he couldn't do it, could he? Instead, they both ended up dying, leaving _me _to pick up the broken pieces of their pride and fame and try to put it all back together." She opened her eyes to stare at the wall, although it slowly got blurry from fatigue and regret. She could just see her father now, grinning down at her and giving her a noogie right before he went to work, and his promise to come home safely…

She narrowed her eyes and spat at the wall, as if it was the source of all of her problems. "There _are _no heroes in this world," she declared to the ghosts of her parents. "There are only those fools who would believe in such brave and fictional legends." She then closed her eyes to finally get the rest she deserved…

…_**rrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRR!**_

Shadowpaw sat up quickly at the sound of an alarm with a startled, "What the hell?!" She leapt out of bed and ran through the door to barely miss Shadow with his suit on running down the hallway to the bridge, and after getting her cat-suit on quickly she followed him to come into a room where Rouge was already working away at the several buttons and levers on the control panel. She looked up at them and explained, "There's a group of Kingdom pilots coming up fast from the southwest. They are armed and looking for trouble!"

Shadowpaw grinned at the thought of a battle and said, "Well, 'trouble' is my middle name!"

"I thought it was 'Midnight'," was the only thing that Shadow said before he slipped off, probably to go to his Zoid, leaving the bat smirking and Shadowpaw glaring at his back. Then she reluctantly followed him, after giving the older woman a dark look, and ran down the narrow passageway to get to the mini-hangar. The feline screeched to a halt at the end of the hallway just as the hedgehog leapt into his Zoid and prepared to leave. She ran across the launch-runway just in time, before he was clamped into place by the claws so they could rush him down the ramp and out into the desert. She waited impatiently for her own Zoid to be positioned before leaping in and giving it the 'all-go'. She held on tight as she was launched as well, gripping the seat as she hit the ground with a jolt. Immediately, she searched for the enemy, instead seeing his Shadow Fox racing into the desert. Flipping the switch for her radar and readying her boosters, she ran after him and grinned at the familiar way she sank into the chair. 'Home sweet home,' she thought as she sprinted, easily catching up to Shadow, and she made a mental note to try to train as often as possible on this mission before her radio and radar screen sparkled to life. Rouge's face appeared on the screen, looking at her with a serious look that surprised the feline.

"_LS? SF? Respond._"

Recognizing the codenames for their Zoids, she looked up to focus on the desert ahead and heard Shadow respond coolly, "_SF is approaching the enemy fast._" Then, he scoffed almost as if he felt they were taking him too lightly."_Apparently, they think we're an easy fight, and only sent out five Zoids._"

'Five Zoids isn't exactly something to gawk at,' she agreed, finding something suspicious about the entire thing before shaking it off and radioing Rouge, "This is LS, and I'm right behind SF."

"_Ooh, lucky._"

She scowled at the bat's face ('Should have _known _she'd make some comment like that sooner or later…') but chose not to reply, instead focusing on the task ahead. She needed to be 'in the zone', with this being the first battle she's had against the Kingdom since the encounter that earned her Wolf Rank. But she _did _encourage her Zoid by saying, "I need to earn my other stripes, right, Saix?" She smiled as it gave a battle yowl, and she couldn't help but think of how her father felt in the cockpit. She had asked him before when she was a child, but he had told her it was hard to explain. Was _this _what he felt? Did he feel as free as a baby chick spreading its wings for the first time whenever he went out on a run? Did he imagine he was soaring across the desert like a fierce hawk? Did he have the power resting in the legs of his Zoid engulf his entire being? What _did_ he feel behind the barrel of the gun?

"_LS, watch out!_"

Rouge's cry was what snapped her out of it and let her dodge the oncoming Dark Horn that had begun a charge. She leapt to the right just in time, the black dino-Zoid scraping her side vaguely and the sudden movement slightly throwing her off balance. She quickly righted herself, however, and turned like lightning to slice the flank of the enemy Zoid before it could get away. It roared and backed away as soon as possible, to which she smirked before turning and leaping over the Dark Horn that tried to catch her off guard, giving it a taste of her firepower and then smacking it with the Saix's claws. She sent it on its back, and watched in triumph as it wriggled for a moment before turning over and standing up on its four feet. It was the bat's voice again, though, that turned her attention to everything else.

"_Oh, dear Lord…_"

"What?" Shadowpaw looked down at her and then around at the desert, wondering what she was talking about before suddenly her breath left her. Her eyes widened and she stopped in her tracks to stare in shock and horror.

"No…"

The sight of the curved, razor claws brought back painful memories. Images of a Lightning Saix with its cockpit crushed flashed in her mind, and she could see the electricity flying through the air as if it was really there. She may not have seen the actual Zoid, but that left her imagination to go wild, spraying blood all over the front and dripping down the fangs on the top of its jaw. Her eyes widened, and all rational thought left her while she breathed out something as if subconsciously:

"Geno Saurer…"

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

He was too busy with the Dark Horns at first to bother to look at his companion, but at the bat's words he turned and got a glance of what else was going on around him. Other than the three Dark Horns surrounding him, there was a Dibison charging towards Shadowpaw, and he cursed to himself before he shot at the black-and-green Zoid's legs while yelling into the radio, "Idiot, start moving!" At first it didn't seem like she had heard, for she stood still for a moment more, but then her Zoid took a step backwards, as if trying to get away from something. At first he couldn't understand what she was doing, here, in the middle of battle, but then the Dark Horn before him moved to give him a full view of what she saw.

"_Geno Saurer…_"

Her words were whispered almost as if she was just talking to herself. She must have left her radio on or something. The tall Zoid towered over her, not even seventy yards away, and seemed to have its blood red eyes that were devoid of life trained on her. It seemed to know something Shadow did not. Not being able to see her face (let alone her emotions), he slashed at the Dark Horn to his left in frustration and again called out, "Cat! Get a hold of yourself!" When the Lightning Saix stayed stock-still, he shouted, "Do _something, dammit!_" This was _not _the time to freeze up in panic.

Then, she seemed to snap, for she growled and leapt forward to attack the Saurer as her Zoid let out a battle cry. It seemed to take the Kingdom pilot by surprise, for it stumbled back slightly as her claws barely missed its right arm. She cursed at her misfortune and continued the onslaught, not letting it have the time to extend its deadly claws. And that was all he saw before his vision was blocked by the Dibison getting back into its defensive position and turning to face him, looking as if steam should be coming out of its ears and nostrils. It stroked the ground once with each of its back feet just as a bull would, and then came charging after him, trapped between the three Dark Horns.

But Shadow always thought on his feet. Or, in this case, _off _of his feet. He leapt up above all of them, his Zoid having extreme power in its legs, and watched as the bull Zoid crushed the side of one of the Dark Horns while a hole gouged the face of another. Only one escaped unharmed as it tilted its head up to watch him almost glide down to land on the ground beside them before he immediately pounced on it much like a feline. He had the brief image of Shadowpaw doing just that, but it was quickly cast away in the heat of battle. He jerked his Zoid away from the fatal horns on the dinosaur Zoid's nose and let loose a barrage of shots from his gun at point-blank range. He leapt back a bit as it collapsed, its front legs unable to lift its heavy body up anymore. Satisfied, he was turning to deal with the other three Zoids in front of him when he was brought out of his personal battle by someone else.

"_Ah, Shadowpaw! Get up!_"

He whipped his Zoid around like a hurricane to see the Lightning Saix pinned down by the Saurer's leg. She had most likely been hit by its massive tail, considering the colossal dent in her side, and it had placed its foot on top of her so she couldn't recover. Her mounted back-gun's barrel was pinned beneath her, bent slightly to render it useless for the remainder of the battle. Her Zoid yowled in protest and writhed around on the ground in an attempt to escape as the Saurer aimed one of the guns on its hands and fired at her dead-on.

Cursing everything to 'blasted Kingdom come', he raced forward, letting loose another barrage of shots to try to distract it as he got closer. It looked up curiously, wondering what was trying to assault it, and was surprised to get mauled in the face by the Shadow Fox's claws. It staggered clumsily backwards, freeing the feline who quickly got up and bent low, ready for another assault. It seemed that it was the Zoid's own move, however, for it now seemed to be waiting for her actual command. The damage it had taken seemed not to affect it, but she seemed to be stunned, as if she had just had an encounter with Death.

Shadow withdrew from attacking the Saurer to attack the bull Zoid which had finally gotten its horn out from the Dark Horn's side and turned to face them. It snorted and started to charge up its beam, but a few rapid shots from Shadow was all it took to disrupt the beam and cause it to burst in the bull's face. It fell back, taking cover behind two Dark Horns as he took the opportunity to glance at the immobilized one on the ground behind the Saurer. It was struggling to get up, but it proved to be no threat when he looked at the shredded gun on its back. Shadowpaw had made quick work of that one.

He could only hope that she would keep it up.

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

Everything seemed to be going too fast for her; one moment, the Geno Saurer held her down and was going to annihilate her, and the next she was standing up and watching as Shadow crashed into her opponent's side, being careful not to be in the line of fire of the claws. She now stood, staring the Saurer down as her mind went blank. She couldn't think, she couldn't plan – her Zoid waited for her command, but she couldn't give one. Not now. She wasn't in control, and she wanted to just curl up and let her Saix fight for itself.

Then, a crackling on the radio made her head snap down to look at the radar screen, and her eyes widened even further when instead of the green grid map or one of her comrades' faces there was the dark image of a hideous monster. She remembered the stories that she had heard other specialists talk about, about the Kingdom's monstrosity of a populace, and she scowled darkly at the screen. 'Black Oak…' She hissed into the radio, "They've hacked into our radio systems!"

"_Don't bother, feline,_" she glared at the screen as it chuckled menacingly, "_it won't matter what they do. Soon, we'll slaughter you all, and _nothing _will stand in our way for total domination!_"

"In your dreams," she spat and grabbed the controls to jerk her Zoid forward in an all-out assault on the Saurer, guns blazing and Zoid yowling. She leapt up and brought down her claw, but suddenly the Saurer opened its mouth and let loose a metallic screech that brought her Zoid down onto the ground and forced her to cover her ears. She cursed, but she wasn't able to hear anything as the Zoid towered over her. She tried to tell her Zoid to attack, but it was cringing as well from the sound, and she looked up furiously as the Kingdom pilot's face sneered at her. Although the Tyrannosaurus-type Zoid had closed its mouth, the sound was still ringing in her ears, and she cursed and strained to hear past the harsh noise. Finally, she could hear the Black Oak laughing at her as its Zoid stared down at her, and she forced her Saix up onto its feet (as if _that _would make a difference) as she shouted, "What are _you _laughing about, _freak?_"

It continued to laugh for a while, irking her to no end, but she couldn't charge it because she knew that it would probably screech again, and so she stood there, anticipation making her hands shake as she gritted her teeth and spat at the image on her radar screen. It grinned cruelly, a nasty look on its face when its mouth was dirty and its sharp teeth were covered in some type of disgusting black-ish/red-ish gel-like liquid, and as it chuckled it told her, "_You are lucky that the Honorable Black Doom does not want to kill you…yet._" Its ugly mug smirked at her scowl. "_You are like a rodent in a rigged maze, _feline, _that is held in the Master's hands._" It raised its three-clawed hand and closed it in a tight grip. "_He can crush you like an insect at any time._"

"Yeah, whatever," Shadowpaw rolled her eyes at the confidence in its voice, and she inquired, "So why doesn't he do that _now, _if he's so _powerful?_" She scoffed at the idea, not believing a word that the monster said. Of course it would praise its master. He'd probably die if he didn't. Doesn't mean that it was telling the truth. She got her Zoid into a 'ready' pose, crouching down slightly as the tail swished behind her slowly like a tree bending in the wind. She taunted with a grin, "Come on, I _dare_ him to!"

The monster laughed again, making her growl angrily, and it shook its head at her. "_He will not destroy his favorite _entertainment. _Besides…_" Its smirk returned to its ugly face. "_There are other ways to crush your spirit than with brute force._"

"What?" Shadowpaw didn't understand what he was trying to say. "That doesn't make sense. What could he possibly –"

But then, the image cut out, and the monster was replaced with the bat looking at her worriedly. She shouted, "_Shadowpaw, can you hear me?_" She looked out of breath, as if she had been yelling for a while now. The feline tilted her head curiously and replied slowly and calmly, "_Yes_…is that _all_ you wanted to know?"

"_Well, _sorry _for _caring – _I couldn't get a hold of you _or _Shadow's radio for a few minutes! It was as if something had tampered it and blocked the signal from the Hover Cargo._"

Shadowpaw frowned as, after the bat's words, the Geno Saurer turned to its allies and opened its mouth, but no sound came out. They seemed to have heard _something_, though, for they all started to back away from them and retreated to the shelter behind it. She saw Shadow's face appear on the screen as he said aloud, "_They can't be retreating already._" The Dark Horn in the very back of the group was the first to run off across the desert, followed by the other one and the Dibison. The Geno Saurer went as if to follow them, but then it stopped and turned to the incapacitated dinosaur Zoid with its belly on the desert sand. It raised its head as if with hope and let out a grunting sound as it made to move towards it.

The two claws snapped out and hooked onto the flank of the Dark Horn, and it could barely let out a warped cry before suddenly sparks flew and the electricity crawled down the thick cables to incinerate the Zoid on the receiving end of the attack. Shadowpaw's eyes were glued to the sight and watched as the Dark Horn raised its head and started to shriek out as if to tell it to stop, but then with a dark purple and black blur the Saurer's tail slammed into its head and neck with a sickening crunch. Its head snapped back with a crack, and its cockpit was crushed beyond repair. The pilot never stood a chance.

As the claws retracted back into their respective places, the Saurer looked straight at her, as if the demonstration was supposed to show how much deadly force he really had. It stared at her with those glowing eyes devoid of anything but a raptor-like anticipation for bloodshed, and it opened its mouth and hissed at her before turning and retreating with the others. The smoking hunk of metal that used to be a Dark Horn sizzled and crackled in the desert sun, smoldering softly. Smoke poured out of its open and deformed mouth like a silent plea for life.

Shadowpaw stood there for a long time, staring at the melted Zoid and the marks left on it from its comrade as well as herself. She didn't swear, or curse, or shout, or even blink. Nothing existed except for her and the shrapnel on the desert sand, with the smoke rising into the sky to darken it with menacing clouds. The color reminded her of the same clouds that had hung overhead at her parents' memorial, except no tears fell from the sky this time, as if it was tired of crying as well. In her mind's eye, she was once again a little girl, holding onto her favorite stuffed animal as she stared at the empty graves, long after everyone else had left. The only other people left were Sly, Cid, and Kussia, and they all had somber and grim looks on their faces as they watched her. The rain may have fallen on her face and made it look like streams of tears fell from her cheeks, but they all knew that she wasn't crying. She just stared with heartbreakingly solemn amber eyes at the tombstones, which read: _'In honor of Moon, who stood up against impossible odds to protect her honor,'_ and _'Shane, whose bravery and courage, and love, is deeply admired and truly missed.'_ In between them, a stone engraved with the following words acted like a ribbon to tie the two empty graves together: _'Raptor Rank Shane Fur and Rhino Rank Moon Paw; partners, lovers, parents, to the end.'_ After a long time of standing there, Cid had held out his hand and told her that they had to take her to their base, and after a while of silently looking up at him she nodded without a word and took his hand.

She was stopped from walking further down Memory Lane when she heard someone clear their throat. Blinking owlishly, she slowly looked down at the screen to see Shadow watching her. He had been on link for a while now, but the fact didn't register with her as she stared back at him, wondering what he wanted. When it was evident she wouldn't respond, he told her, "_We need to get back to the Hover Cargo, so stop daydreaming and come on._" He left no room for argument as he turned off his radio, and she looked and saw him turn around and began to run back the way they came. Still a bit out of it, she followed a bit slower, taking a moment to glance back at the wreckage behind them. The eyes, which were one of the only things not completely destroyed, were smoldering with a fire burning within the head, making it look as if there was still something there, watching her with demonic eyes.

She didn't look back again.

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-&-_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

Shadow sighed and pushed aside the still-full cup, no longer thirsty. His thoughts were too consuming and questions so demanding that he just couldn't sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee anymore. His mind kept replaying what he had seen and heard at the battle, including his own special talk he had. Shadowpaw wasn't the only one who was being watched by the Kingdom; Black Doom himself had come onto his screen and told him so. Rouge hadn't told Shadowpaw that they could _hear _her talking, but not what _she _was hearing, for the most part. For Shadow, however, it seemed Black Doom hadn't let _any _signal come or leave for their entire conversation; otherwise, the others would have been asking about many things he really didn't want to explain at the moment. Black Doom had wanted him to hear her words, to show that she had some importance to the Kingdom as well. 'But what for,' he wondered, disliking the fact that he didn't know the answer. 'Why would they be watching _her?_ Me, I understand…but…why _her?_ Is it her parents? Her strange bond with the Alpha Rex? Her bond with _me?_' He scoffed at the last one, but all the same…what _was _the answer? What did Black Doom have planned for her?

He remembered Doom's exact words before he left his communications link. "**I have something **special **for the both of you, Shadow. Don't keep me waiting.**" That was when Shadowpaw had started to dare Black Doom to 'do it', whatever 'it' was, and then Shadow had gotten to hear the Oak's reply for a moment. '_There are other ways to crush your spirit than with brute force… _What does _that _mean?' He had been just as confused as Shadowpaw had with the reply, but a bad feeling in his gut had told him it wouldn't be good for either him or her. That was what he hated about the Kingdom and its ugly people; he couldn't read their emotions as easily as he could others, making them an enigma wrapped around a mystery. It made them impossible to predict, and even harder to engage in combat if they were skilled enough. That was what had killed his father and the previous Alpha Rex.

He looked up as Rouge came in and sighed, her shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world was on them. She collapsed into a chair, looking about as bored and troubled as a dog stuck in a cage. She leaned her head back and let it smack into the wall behind her, grumbling a small 'ouch' of resentment as she stared at the ceiling with her eyes half-closed. He guessed what was bothering her and asked uninterestedly, "Is the feline still moping in her room?" He had to admit he hadn't expected anything else, and when the bat nodded with another sigh he came to a decision and stood up. As he strode calmly yet determined over to the door, the bat lifted her head to question him. "Where are you going," she inquired, blinking with confusion.

"To get that sorry-for-herself, self-pitying cat off of her lazy ass and make her do some paperwork," he told her as he left, missing the smirk on her face as she nodded at her good work. 'Perfect,' she took pride at her cleverness and kicked back, putting her hands behind her head and crossing her legs. "Boys are just _too easy!_"

Meanwhile, Shadow strolled down the hallway to the rooms and stopped at the feline's door. He raised his hand to knock on the door, but was surprised when it slid open and Shadowpaw walked out and smacked her face into his chest with a muffled '_oomph_'. Not expecting there to suddenly be a black fuzzy wall in front of her door, she staggered back slightly and looked at her doorway in bewilderment as she held her nose, as if expecting some sort of special force field or something. When she saw him, however, her mouth tightened into a thin line as she flushed slightly in the face.

He raised an eyebrow at her strange behavior. He really didn't think that not wearing a shirt would really matter. But, now that she was in front of him and she was acting this peculiar, he thought that maybe he should do it more often. It seemed to quell the fight in her, if at least for a moment.

They kind of just stood there in silence, staring at one another, with Shadow analyzing her body language. Her knees were locked into place, and her feet were shoulders'-length apart and looked like two blocks of cement, not wanting to budge. Her back was stiff and straight, looking as if she was caught red-handed doing something wrong. Her arms were at her side, yet raised slightly, as if she wanted to do something but was unsure of what exactly. Of course, there was that blush on her face, showing her embarrassment in bumping into him just as she was leaving (and shoving her face into his chest, no less). Her ears twitched, showing she wanted him to say something to end the silence. And her eyes…they were difficult; he couldn't see past the hard gold wall she had built up ever since she had come back from the battle. He knew that the wall wasn't there before, but now it stood, closing off the best source of answers from him. Now, he could only speculate by her movements and words, but even _that _didn't answer all of his questions.

"May I come in?" He didn't even wait for her answer, instead just walking into the room as she backed up a bit so she didn't touch him again. Knowing that it was rude to leave it open, he closed the door behind him and looked back at the uncomfortable feline. She looked ready to bolt out or something, but her eyes were still shut from him, although her eyelids didn't cover them, and wouldn't give him the reason why. He glanced around the room, noticing that it was pretty neat and yet devoid of any real 'homey feeling' that Rouge had in her room with all of her knick-knacks and precious souvenirs and all. The closest thing to 'homey' was her communicator blinking on her desk.

His eyes focusing back on her, Shadow looked down at her and really noticed how short she was compared to him. He was a good three-to-five inches taller than her, even without his shoes, which was why she had run into his chest. If he tried to put his arm around her shoulder (not like he _would_), he would have to bend down slightly to rest it parallel to the ground. He realized that if he ever really didn't want to let her have something, like an important document for example, he simply had to hold it high over his head and she would be hopelessly leaping up trying to get it. Nearly smirking at the thought before he waved it away, he looked at her seriously and asked, "Where were you going?"

"Err…" She looked up at the ceiling. "My Zoid…"

"But there's not much damage on it, and the machines are already working on that," he countered, already knowing he'd win the battle. After all, her eyes were so devoid of emotion and her tone was so bland of real meaning that he knew her heart wasn't set on it. She sighed and shook her head, correcting, "I wasn't checking on it; I was going to sit in the cockpit for a while."

"What, your room's too _plain _for you?" He smirked as finally she scowled, glad that he had gotten a better reaction out of her. If he had to see her get all sad and go mope somewhere one more time, he was going to strangle her. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall as she turned her head to look at a spot away from him. With the way she was looking at it, it was almost as if there was something important behind it and she was trying to bore a hole through the wall with her gaze. But her eyes were still dull; it was like looking at two weathered golden coins that had seen harsher climates.

Sighing, he looked over at his door, knowing that when he was done with her he should get his _own _work finished. He didn't have as much as he did before they left, but it was still a big pile. 'It _would _be nice if she did her _own _share,' he grumbled silently, and he was going to say something of the like when a sudden question came from the feline.

"Do you believe in heroes?"

He blinked a moment, not understanding what she said until it clicked, and then turned his head back to look at her. She now had her back to him, but he could see something hidden in the way she held herself. Or, rather, the way she _didn't _hold herself. She looked as if she had given up on something, and her shoulders sagged slightly with weariness while her tail drooped on the ground like a piece of wet string. She looked like someone who just didn't have much to live for anymore.

And that irked him to no end.

He couldn't stand people giving up; he dubbed them as too weak and stepped over them before continuing on his way to his own success. If they couldn't deal with the choices they made, they shouldn't have made them in the first place and followed that path as far as they did. They were weaklings that didn't deserve anything, who whined and complained and threw in the towel at the first sign of a complication. They didn't _deserve _to live.

And now, this feline, who had been assigned his partner and was a stubborn spitfire, was moping and looking as pathetic as a wet kitten on the streets. He scowled at her back, half-glad she couldn't see it. She had more stuff than most other people, and, he grudgingly admitted, she was talented at certain things, and yet she was going to sit in a corner and cry like a wimp. He wouldn't let her, though; she was his challenge, and he wasn't going to let her break her _own_ spirit.

Straightening up with a strange feeling of determination, he looked at her back and thought hard about the question. He was quiet for a while, in which time the cat didn't even move, until he came to a conclusion and answered, "I believe there are people clever enough, or stupid enough, to meet Life and Death face-to-face without backing down." He shrugged, although he knew she wouldn't be able to see it. "If that is what you call a hero, then yes."

She was unresponsive after this, to which Shadow took as a sign that she was considering his words. Her tail-tip twitched ever so slightly in quiet contemplation, and the tension in her muscles revealed that this matter was serious to her.

Whatever secret was hidden under this mystery, he was going to dig it out even if he had to use his bare hands.

Then, she twisted her head to look over her left shoulder at him, her eyes colder than the old ashes of a wildfire. She seemed to be scrutinizing him, as if asking him silently for answers, but she instead looked up at his face and said in a monotone voice, "I think that authority is an excuse for people to lead others with their lies and tricks." It was the strangest and _coldest _feeling when she said it so detachedly, as if she wasn't really there and was watching something in her mind's eye. "And a hero is just a 'leader' who thinks he can 'change the world with his ideas'." She then turned her body fully around to face him and strode over smoothly, until she only stood a couple of inches from him so he could barely feel her breath on his skin. She raised her face up to stare at his, and now in her amber orbs there was something fierce, almost terrifying in them; hatred. No matter what other emotion was there, anger and loathing covered it all like a bloodlust. Yet he knew, he _knew,_ that there was something else there. She was just so livid at the moment that he couldn't understand it.

"Heroes," she whispered, although it was as crystal clear as her shouting, "are people who disregard others beliefs and follow their own, straight to their demise. At Death's doorstep, they leave the world out on the cold steps and let themselves be enveloped by its sweet, dark embrace." She was glaring at him without actually glaring, as if she was shouting through her words that she hated him so. Her voice grew lower so that he actually had to strain a bit to hear her, "They only think about themselves and leave the rest of the world to wither and die. They lie to the people they love and tell them sugary lies of hope and peace, when in all reality, the whole world is full of darkness."

As Shadow stared at her with a blank expression, he saw how she clenched her jaw slightly and her fists trembled with barely controlled rage, as if it was all she could do not to punch him. She seemed so calm, however, and he wondered how she could, now, at a time like this, have control over her emotions. The only time he felt he really needed to know something, she was about to conceal it and hide it away within her shell. It was like a lizard waiting for the alligator to leave the nest so it could have its feast.

Her voice then returned to its normal tone, with all of its volume and intensity packed in every single word: "_Leaders_ and _heroes _are only wolves in sheep's clothing, hiding behind their fake-confident smiles and witty catchphrases, when in all reality they can't handle what they are expected to. As soon as it looks too hard for them, they wave the white flag and give up. They think that they are invincible and are perfect at everything, but when they're _really _needed, they can't even do a damn thing right. They're just a waste of air." She then bowed her head and finished her speech by glowering at the floor, "The world would be better off without them."

It was then that it clicked; she thought of him as one of those 'wolves in sheep's clothing'. A 'hero'. She thought that he was trying to prove that he was better than her just so that he could use her as a stepping stone to fame and money and power. Something seemed to be linked to this, as if someone had done that to her or made her feel as if she was being used. Then, the puzzle pieces slowly began to come together in his mind, and he made his first comment since she started:

"But your parents are heroes, aren't they?"

She didn't move, didn't even breathe for a moment as she kept her gaze on the ground, and he knew that he had just hit the nail on the head on this one. They stood there in silence, with Shadowpaw's head turned downwards as he stared at her, waiting for an answer to his question. And, he got one.

"_Were._" It was so blunt and sudden that he almost missed it, but then she looked straight ahead and walked past him, slightly brushing against his shoulder as she walked out of her room and down the hallway, probably to get in the cockpit of her Zoid like she said she would earlier. He stood there still in her room, staring at the spot she had stood just a moment ago as he gathered his thoughts. With everything that he learned about this feline, she just got him more confused and each question that she answered made at least two more rise in its place. It seemed that he would never figure her out…

"Women are complex," he sighed and shook his head, before turning and walking to the door connecting with his room, but he stopped as he passed her desk and saw the communicator laying there, the little light still blinking at him. Curious, but cautious, he walked over and picked it up, examining the bold letters on the screen. "One missed call," he mused aloud, "and one voice message. Hmmm…"


	10. Sleeping in Memories

**(****Yeah, go have fun.**

**Oh, wait, you're expecting dedications?**

**Go crawl into a hole and die.****)**

**Chapter Nine**

**Sleeping in Memories**

"**Oak, report.**"

"_**Yes, sir: the feline is currently traveling with a hedgehog and a bat, with the former I'm sure is someone you are familiar with.**_"

"**Yes, I realize that. I felt the recognition that shocked you when you approached them. I've been watching him with my Eye ever since his father died protecting the former AR of the Crusaders. It is my business to know **everything **that happens to him, including his partners and missions.**"

"_**Indeed, but there **__is __**something else.**_"

"**Oh? Would you care to **enlighten **me, **Oak?"

"_**Yes, sir; while I was pinning down the Lightning Saix of the feline's in a feint attempt to kill her, I was surprised to find that the **__hedgehog__** came to her rescue and fought me off of her, although he **__was__** her only other companion in the battle. He also distracted the Dibison that started to charge her, and it only took his words to get her attention off of the scorched hulk of metal that I exterminated.**_"

"**Hmm…indeed, I did not follow you on your mission, with such…**pressing** matters here to attend to. I am surprised that I hadn't thought of looking through him to see his side of the battle, but I assumed that you would tell me **everything**.**"

"_**Which I **__did, __**sir.**_"

"**Yes, of course…**"

"_**What shall I do **__now, __**Black Doom?**_"

"**For now…I want you to take care of the Crusaders attacking our borders, while **I **deal with those two…**"

"_**Yes, Black Doom, of course. Oh, and I remember something else I managed to get a hold of while I was in their signals, sir.**_"

"**And…?**"

"_**It was about their companion…Rouge was her name.**_"

"**That is **very **useful, Oak; I remember that **bat **who led her own assault on our defenses at the borders. She was the one who assisted in pushing the border back for the GUN soldiers. But…why is she with the **Crusaders** now?**"

"_**She **__isn't, __**sir. That is what I found. There was a link in the signals that led to another base that I found. It went straight to the Commander's link.**_"

"Excellent! **That is a tremendous discovery of yours, Oak.**"

"_**Thank you, sir.**_"

"In fact, **I do believe I'll reward you for that.**"

"…_Really? __**What exactly, sir?**_"

"**I'll allow you access to my Eye, Oak, so that you too shall be informed of what happens to the targets. Understood?**"

"_**Yes, sir! But, how will I get the vision, sir?**_"

"**I will send you a mental link that you **will _answer_** and **_receive_**, and you shall be able to look through the Eye at anytime you, and I, deem necessary.**"

"_**Yes, sir! It is a great honor, sir!**_"

"**Now, get to work on those idiots that are trying to defend against the Crusaders. It is rare to find good soldiers these days, which is why I am **overjoyed **at your effort, Oak.**"

"_**Right away, sir. What shall I tell the soldier already in charge of that?**_"

"**You won't **need **to tell him anything. I have already…taken care of him. Take **that** as a warning to keep up your good work, Oak.**"

"_**Yes, sir. Understood.**_"

"…**Hmph, just give them a little indulgence, and they're as loyal as a pitiful **dog."

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_K_-**U**-S-_S_-**I**-A

"_Aww, honey, _look_ at her! She's so adorable."_

"That's right, sweetie; after all, she has your laugh_."_

"_Ah, but she has your eyes. And most of your fur, too."_

"But she has your temper, I bet you_."_

"_Oh, stop it! I do not have a temper!"_

"Don't raise your voice inside, dear._"_

"_Sorry, honey…so, shall we go out for a stroll in the pilot's gardening area?"_

"No flower in there can compare to you, my little Luna Flower_."_

"_Oh, stop it, you flatterer! How long have you been friends with Sly again?"_

"Please, he's learned all of his compliments and lines from_ me_._"_

"_Oh, dear…"_

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?_"_

"_Oh, nothing, just…_all _of them?"_

"Oh, no, not_ all_ of them – I mean the proper ones_."_

"_Oh, okay, that's good. We wouldn't want a bad influence on our baby!"_

"You know, I think the combination of my middle name and your last name for our daughter's was brilliant, my dear. You really are a bright young woman._"_

"_Oh, but _you _are the smartest man I've ever met."_

"Man? Smart? Honey, are you feeling okay?_"_

"_Oh! I said smart_est!_ If I keep laughing, I'll wake Shadowpaw!"_

"Alright, alright, I'll stop. If only for the baby's sake_."_

"_So, what'll we do?"_

"What'll we do, what?_"_

"_I mean with her!"_

"What do _you_ want? I'm sure whatever you decide will be the best for her_."_

"_Oh, thank you, dearie…but…I don't know, is she cut out for it? The life of a pilot? I mean, she looks so frail and fragile…"_

"Honey, she's_ our_ kid. I bet when she's eight-years-old, we'll have to stop her from beating up the kids at school for calling her 'ugly'_."_

"_That would be horrible! Don't suggest such a thing!"_

"Of course, the kid who called her ugly may be blind, but –"

"_No, I mean about the beating up! I don't want her to be like that; I mean, she may have a temper, but I don't want her to be a bully, or a rebellious teenager, or – or –"_

"Don't worry, Flower – I'm sure that, as long as we're around, she'll grow up to be a fine young lady – who can pack a punch_."_

"_Oh, alright…but…well, what if we're _not_ here?"_

"Let's leave the 'what if's for the ones who can't leave take a step forward without doubting themselves. Let's not be afraid of what _might_ happen, and instead focus on what we will _make_ happen."

"_Oh, honey…"_

"Let's not be the ones who will be afraid of what we will face, but instead embrace it, give it a warm welcome and a pat on the back and welcome it inside for dinner. We'll be _fine_, Moon. Nothing's going to happen to us_."_

"_You promise, Shane?"_

"I promise_."_

"_Oh, alright…if you say so."_

"Good, now, shouldn't we feed our baby?_"_

"_Oh! Oh, dear! Uhh, sweetie? Come on, baby, wake up…"_

…

"Wake up…"

"Wake _up…_"

"_Shadowpaw!_"

Shadowpaw leapt up from the chair of the cockpit and hit her head on the ceiling that protected the pilot. She held her head and bit her lip as she hissed colorful words before looking up to see who had woken her up. Rouge stood on the platform raised to the Saix's head, her hands on her hips with her weight resting mostly on her right foot. She tapped the glass and told her, "Come out of there and get some fresh air, you must be _suffocating _in there!"

The feline sighed. She had retreated to the Zoid after her talk with Shadow to think, and she ended up falling asleep and having that dream again. The one where she imagined her mother and father talking to one another, with herself in her mother's arms as she rocked her tenderly back and forth. It was the same every time, and it left her confused and wondering if it was really a memory or if it was just a dream. It _felt _real; it was almost like she could actually feel her mother's arms around her, her soft and loving hands and words stroking her ears. But, she was too young to possibly be able to remember something like that, word-for-word, let alone understand it all. So, she waved it off as she sighed and clicked the button to let up the roof and let her out.

As she leapt out gracefully in her specialist uniform, Rouge gave an 'oh' of recollection and told her, "By the way, Kussia is waiting on your communicator for your report. Shadow and I have already done ours, so it's _your_ turn." She then flicked the lever to lower the platform they both stood on, and walked with the feline to the living room and handed her the communicator. She sighed, taking it reluctantly, and went into her room to do it in private. She _really _didn't want anyone to be listening to her conversation with the Alpha Rex, since he would most likely have one of those 'personal talks' that had lots of in-depth things and blasts from the past that she really didn't even want to talk about. But, she had to give him a report, and she could only hope that he would leave it at strictly business, as much as she hated _that. _It was the lesser of two evils.

She sighed and clicked on the button that reminded her of the redial button on regular phones, putting it on visual as it started to ring. It only got to the third ring before it was picked up and Kussia's face appeared on the screen the floated in front of her, looking a little peeved for some reason. And that reason, she quickly figured out, was red, vulpine, and was still talking to him.

"So you see, Kussia, it really is extremely easy, especially for someone like me. Your love life will be _so _much more productive if you only just listened to what I –"

"_Shadowpaw!_" He seemed a bit glad to have been called by her, if only to stop his 'friend' from giving him 'tips', and he said her name a _little _too loudly as Sly's face appeared on the screen to look at her curiously. Kussia told her, "Such a _surprise _to have you call me, especially since everyone _else _gave their reports about an _hour_ ago."

Sly added, "And also including the fact that _you _called _him _instead of waiting for him to call again, although you might ignore _that _until the _fifth _time, like you always do, and –"

"Yeah, whatever," she waved her hand wearily, used to the two's usual ways of saying that she was rebellious and stubborn. "Rouge told me that you called, and I figured that I might as well get it over with." She examined their slightly surprised faces and sighed. "Can I just tell you my report and get off?"

"Err, sure…?" The confusion in Sly's voice was enough to convince Shadowpaw to make it sweet and simple, as well as super short, and so she cleared her throat and began to explain. "Earlier today, as I'm sure the other two have already informed you of, we were approached by Kingdom pilots. We combated them for a while, but then they mysteriously retreated." She shrugged. "Other than that, I have no information for you."

"Are you sure about that?" Kussia looked at the feline with a somber frown. He could tell by the way she looked off at some wall that she didn't want to talk to him at the moment, which made him a bit uneasy and even a little suspicious. "That's not all that Shadow and Rouge gave me, Shadowpaw. They took more than a _minute _to explain." He didn't like the way she glanced a bit anxiously at the screen, and he sighed and commanded, "In _depth, _Shadowpaw."

She sighed, feeling a bit disappointed that all of her attempts to keeping it short and simple were scattered to the four winds. She looked at the two expectant faces staring at her and, after mentally declaring that her life royally sucked, opened her mouth to start explaining when –

"What're you –" She turned around just to see Shadow stop and blink at her, as if not expecting her to be actually _talking _to Kussia. "Oh," he muttered under his breath, looking at the curious and surprised faces of the three staring back at him, then gave an excuse for staying by conversing, "I'm surprised she even called you back."

Sly brightened up a little and said, "That's what _I _said!" Shadowpaw and Kussia both rolled their eyes at the same time and sighed, before the hedgehog looked at her oddly as the Alpha Rex told the red fox, "Get out, Sly."

"What? Why? You let me stay for the others! I didn't do any –"

"Just _go, _Sly." The grey squirrel watched as his friend pretended to pout as he walked off, and when the door closed behind him Kussia sighed and shook his head. 'I can't exactly remember why he works for me if he doesn't _listen _to me…' Then, he turned to the screen and cleared his throat. "Alright, now, continue on, Shadowpaw."

"Err, yeah…" She glanced at Shadow standing there with an eyebrow raised. "Um, Shadow? Get out."

"I don't have to," he crossed his arms and smirked at her, as if to say 'I'm a higher rank than you', and she scowled and glared at him threateningly. He didn't budge, however, and she looked back at the Alpha Rex and nagged him, "Kussia, get him out! I can't do a report with _him _in here!"

"That's _Alpha Rex Rank Kussia R. Windokin,_" he pointed out, grinning slightly at her glower, and he scratched his chin while staring up at the ceiling. "And _you _don't order _me_ around."

"Squirrelly-say-_what?_" She looked at him as if he had just told her to start flapping her arms and fly. "But, he – what are you – why is –" She couldn't form proper sentences, and so she finally growled and threw up her hands as a sign of defeat, scowling at the chuckle from the gray squirrel and crossing her arms while glaring at a wall. She gave a glance to the hedgehog behind her, who 'encouraged' her by saying, "Don't let my presence _distract_ you from your duty." She scoffed and turned back to the screen, glaring at Kussia for a bit more before asking sneeringly, "Why couldn't _Sly_ stay, then?"

"Do you _really_ want Sly here to annoy us with his little comments?"

"True…" She sighed. "What do you want to know, _O Almighty Kussia R. Windokin?_"

"I could get used to that," the squirrel commented, smirking when Shadowpaw scoffed again, and he thought, 'She'll never change. Not in a million years.'

"Well," he started, knowing that if he stalled for any longer she would get pissed and refuse to give him a report, "you could explain your side of the battle, for starters."

He watched as she hesitated, which made him raise an eyebrow, and then she replied, trying to dodge the matter, "It's not much, really. I mean, there was the fighting and the taunting and all…" She nervously scratched the back of her neck and looked away from the expectant face. "It's not really anything to talk about…"

"That's not what _I _heard," the squirrel pushed, and added, "If you refuse to report, I can technically suspend you from piloting and force you to stay in the Hover Cargo while Shadow does all of the scouting and battling by himself."

Shadow looked up at him from examining his hands and said, "Please, do it."

The feline scoffed and rolled her eyes, then turned and sighed as she looked reluctantly at her leader. She knew she had to tell him about it, but…she felt uncomfortable with Shadow there. She didn't know why, but…she just didn't want him to listen to everything that she said. It was this creepy feeling that, whatever she did or said, he would remember, and possibly use against her. And, she had a feeling that these 'feelings' of insecurity was what Kussia was counting on. 'The conniving ways of the _heroes,_' she thought, and she mentally scowled before straightening up a bit and looking at the Alpha Rex with a determined, if reluctant, expression on her face. She wouldn't back down from whatever Kussia threw at her. "Where should I start?"

"Well, first tell me how the hell that Geno Saurer pinned you down, with you being own of the most slippery and difficult people I know!"

"…Right…" She hesitated slightly, then came back full force. "That tail of the Saurer's isn't exactly anything to forget about…_sir…_" She scowled. She hated saying that word.

"…Alright." He was satisfied that she admitted it caught her off-guard, and so he proceeded with the questioning. "So, your communication was cut off during the battle?"

The feline hesitated again, and Kussia frowned at her. 'What is with her today?' Then, she cleared her throat and answered softly, "…Sorta."

"'Sorta'?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "What's that mean?"

Before Shadowpaw could reply, Shadow answered for her. "She means that the signal was mostly blocked from the Hover Cargo, and Rouge." He seemed to ignore her glare, and she narrowed her eyes at him and hissed, "I can do my own report!" She looked absolutely livid at the hedgehog.

He scoffed and responded coolly, "Not from what _I _see." He smirked at the feline's anger rising, and Kussia sighed and shook his head. 'They haven't changed since they've left.' Then, he cleared his throat and commanded them, "Stop fighting; Shadow, let her do it without someone holding her hand." Just because he wasn't with them at the moment didn't mean he couldn't have _his_ fun. She scowled at him and muttered, "_Rat…_"

Kussia briefly wondered who she was referring to, but he cast it aside as he verbally nudged her, "Continue."

She snapped at him, "With what?" She seemed to have forgotten what she was doing.

Kussia sighed and asked calmly, "What happened after it blocked the communications?"

She blinked and let out a soft, "Oh…" Feeling a bit stupid, she cleared her throat again to try to gather the broken pieces of her pride and started to explain again. "Well, after they were blocked, it proceeded to hack directly into the links and –"

Kussia gave a fake gasp and said with false-shock, "_What?!_" He tried not to laugh when Shadowpaw glared at him, and it became even harder to look innocent when she growled and pointed out, "_Yes; _I thought you've already heard all of this!"

Here, the Alpha Rex shrugged, knowing it would irk her even more, and said simply, "Doesn't mean you have to miss out on all of my fun reactions I had with the first report just because you were an hour late." He finally did chuckle when she let out a groan and smacked her forehead, as if wishing that it would give her some boost of intelligence to make a witty comment back, and he grinned and thought, 'I'm glad she's not here to try to kill me.'

Then, Shadow sighed and shook his head at them both, as if he thought they were the most childish bunch ever. He informed Shadowpaw with a sneer, "He did it to me, too, feline, so don't think you're getting any _special treatment._" In response to that, the cat turned to him and rolled her eyes with a growl, "Oh, yes, I feel _so _privileged…" She scoffed and crossed her arms, glaring at the both of them and hoping that they would both drop dead. 'If only I could see a shooting star right about now…'

Kussia chuckled at both of their faces. 'It's funny when they both actually talk (somewhat) civilized, especially to each other!' He sighed contently. 'My plan is already set into motion.'

The feline glared at him and snapped, "Do you want the damn report or not?" He just shrugged, making her narrow her eyes, and answered, "Go ahead, I'm not stopping you." She grumbled dark words to herself, before she cleared her throat to get his _complete _attention and continuing, "Well, the Geno Saurer hacked into the communications link and the Oak started to taunt me and everything, plus it screeched so my Zoid was immobilized and I couldn't crush its ugly mug, damn monster, and then…" She stopped. 'And then…'

Kussia blinked and repeated, "And then…?"

After a moment, she shook her head as if to get some image out from it, and she looked down as she frowned with contemplation. "And then…well…I don't really understand it…but, before it left the link and ran off, it told me," she then proceeded to hiss in a bad imitation of its voice, "_there are other ways to break your spirit than with brute force._"

It was silent for a while, to which Shadowpaw looked up to watch Kussia's face for any sign of his thoughts. He was frowning slightly at her, as if something was wrong with her, and she gulped to try to release the tension in her dry throat and asked him, "W…What does it mean, Kussia?"

The squirrel stayed solemn and grim, and he looked at her with his icy blue eyes and asked distractedly, "What happened afterwards, Shadowpaw?" It looked as if he was dreading and expecting something terrible to happen, but whether it was at the battle or in the future she wasn't sure.

"Well…" She gulped and looked down at her feet. "When they were turning to leave, the Saurer…" She hesitated. "It…"

It was silent for a while, with Shadowpaw trailing off her sentence as she kept her eyes glued to the ground, although she was watching the scene over and over again in her mind. She was frozen to the spot, trying not to think about it and yet she couldn't stop it from invading her thoughts. It was almost as if it was planted in her mind by some unknown force, making her relive the experience over and over again, taunting her with the images.

"…That'll be all, Shadowpaw." Kussia nodded, understanding softening his expression. He knew that, although her face looked as calm as could be, she seemed to be out of breath and her eyes were enough to show the pain. "I want you two to send in a written report about both you _and _the enemies' moves and strategies, as well as Zoids and weapons. It would do well to try to figure out how they work so that next time you meet you'll have an advantage." Before he cut the link, though, he looked at Shadowpaw and said something that was mostly directed to her, "Both of you get some rest tonight.

"You're gonna need it."


	11. Midnight Fantasies?

**(**_**The Perfect Harmony of Hearts**_**)**

**Chapter Ten**

**Midnight Fantasies?**

**(A/N: Wow, lots of no-chatting-chappies, eh? Whoops!**

**And also, the underlining in the documents seems to go away for some reason, at least if it's also in bold...anyone know why?****)**

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

_His arms wrapped around her in a tender embrace from behind, with his hot breath tickling the back of her neck. She shivered, wanting to shy away and yet wanting to get even closer to him, and as she was stuck between the decision she felt him move his head so that his breath was now in her ear. She nearly turned to frozen ice and yet melted away at the same time, in such a daze that she barely recognized his voice telling her, "It isn't too hard, being a hero." She could feel his chuckle vibrate through his chest and course through her, making her sigh softly at the feeling. He then whispered, "All you have to do is open your eyes…"_

"…Hn?" The feline sat up in the dark room, her eyes blinking to try to adjust to the unnatural shades of gray around her. The only other light was the soft yellow slit that slipped through the door connecting to the hedgehog's room, with the scribbling of a pencil breaking into the muffled silence around her. She frowned, wondering why the door was open, but she was really too tired to care as she leaned forward to brace herself with the palms of her hands as she stretched her arms out in front of her. Nearly stretching out completely, she let out a long sigh as her mind slowly lifted the haze and tried to sort out her thoughts into something orderly. After a couple of minutes of just sitting there, she was able to actually understand herself and wonder what exactly woke her up.

'Wasn't I dreaming about something?' She sat up a bit straighter and crossed her arms, looking up blindly at the ceiling that hid in complete darkness. She was sure that, before she had opened her eyes, there had been something else playing on the back of her eyelids. She felt something in her mind, as if it was just sitting there in boredom, and yet she couldn't quite place her claw on what it was. It was like that one actor you couldn't quite remember the name of, but you know that the movie you just watched had him in it. She always hated that feeling, and she loathed it even more as she was left in the silence of her thoughts. Eventually, she was drawn to the sound drifting in from Shadow's room and was compelled to get out of bed and check to see if he was actually still awake. With a glance at the clock, (one in the morning) she was sure that no one in their right mind _would _be up this early…or was it 'this late'? She waved away her silent ramblings as she tiptoed to his door, peeking in the small crack with the saying 'curiosity killed the cat' fresh on her mind. 'Aww, screw it, I'm too tired to care…'

After a moment of squinting at the seemingly bright light in his room, her vision focused so that she could clearly see the hedgehog sitting at his desk with an arm propping up his head while he continued with his work. She was amazed that he could actually stay up this late doing something as boring as paperwork, and the surprising guilt and pity she felt for the guy actually started to make her want to do her _own _work. Not that she would tell him that, though. Shaking her head slightly at his crazy antics, she watched him for a moment more, writing down with a determination that seemed slightly strained at the tedious work, before she turned around to return to bed, the darkness of the room hindering her journey for a second. Before she could go far, however, she was stopped by his voice:

"I know you're awake, cat."

A little irked that he had noticed her and that he _still _called her that, she heard him moving slightly in his chair and reluctantly turned back to see him with his torso twisted to the left so that he could face her. He rested his left arm on the back of the chair, looking at her a bit bothered and with a look of tiredness in his eyes. She had never really took the time to study him, what with her obvious hatred and opposition towards him, but now that she had the chance she noticed how weary he looked sometimes, especially now in the dead of the night (err, or maybe it was morning?) while staring at words that probably began to bleed together over time. He seemed a bit more casual now though, not wearing his specialist suit like he usually did, and gave her a good view of his chest once more; all the fluffier, and white, like last time. It looked like cotton, and after a moment of toying with the idea of playing with it like a ball of yarn she shook it out of her head with a scolding to herself, immediately noticing that Shadow was examining her emotions once again. She realized that he did that almost all of the time, as if trying to dissect her like a frog, and it angered her that he would be so analytical with something like thoughts and feelings, especially hers.

She then noticed the necklace around his neck, the familiarity of the cross bringing her back to the day she accidentally stumbled into his room. Nearly flushing in the face at the embarrassing thought, she pushed away the blush that threatened to humiliate her by wondering why he wore it so often. 'Is he a religious type of guy,' she wondered, looking at him curiously. He didn't seem like the type to be all 'do-the-cross-and-pray-to-God', but then again looks can be deceiving. She knew that was definitely the case with most people, including herself, and so she let her mind explore her questions as she stared at the silver cross. It was just so familiar, now that she thought about it, and she wondered why she felt that way for a while until suddenly it hit her…

_She laughed, and then she snatched the sacred pendant that weighed down his fluffy chest and yanked on it hard, satisfied when he grunted in discomfort…_

'Oh, my _God!_' Her eyes widened in shock and horror. 'That necklace was in my _dream! _Which means…' She had a sharp intake of air. 'I was _dreaming _about _him?!_' Her surprise was too much, making her mouth drop down slightly as she stared at the cross sitting at its rightful place on his chest. She nearly had a heart attack, and the whole dream came back to her in a rush. With jumbled images making homage to her cluttered mind, a single thought came out loud and clear: 'What the _hell _was he doing in my dream, and – and _hugging _me like that?'

"Are you going to say something?" His smooth voice cut through her thoughts like a hot knife through butter (such an overused analogy…), making her snap her head up slightly to look at his eyes. They looked at her with a hint of amusement and curiosity hid in the gesture of him raising an eyebrow, and she almost spat at him. '_Dammit!_ He's so damn self-centered…_bastard!_ How _dare_ he come into my dreams at night?!' Not really taking in the fact that he had no control over what she dreamt about, she decided to convert her shock to anger and to let it _all out _on him. He deserved it, anyways.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at him, as if her moment of terror had never happened. "Well, _you're _the one who was all like 'I know you're awake, cat'," she glared at him and added, "By the way, it's _Shadowpaw; _not _cat, _not _feline, _Shadowpaw." Her eyes narrowed dangerously as he laughed at her, and she spat, "What's so funny?!"

"Oh, nothing," he smirked at her, "other than the fact that your face is red."

She froze as he continued to laugh, looking much like a deer in headlights. 'I'm…_wha?_' She gave a quick glance around the room and then found her reflection in the mirror – she _was_ blushing. Her face grew even more red, and she turned slightly so that she wasn't looking directly at him as she stared at the wall. 'Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit!_ _Why _am I blushing?! _Shiiiiiiiiit!_' She mentally tore the fur from her head, and then imagined wiping that smirk off of his face by taking a handful of his chest-fur and ripping it out. Feeling a bit consoled, she grinned at the idea of causing him pain, and she heard the chair squeak with his movements. She turned her face to look at him with his legs straddling the back of the chair to stare at her better, and she blinked and tilted her head. "What?"

He slightly tipped his head to the side, too, as if mocking her or trying to see what she saw when she did that, and he asked, "What were you thinking about? It seems rather interesting with that devilish grin you had."

She smirked at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously, and she hummed, "Mm, nothing, really. Just thinking of fur." She loved the look of confusion in his bloody orbs, and she nearly laughed at the way he tilted his head farther. But, she kept her composure and instead got confident; she walked up to him so that they were a few inches apart, reached out and held up the pendant on his neck to take a closer look at it. It was an ordinary ornament, just a plain silver cross that felt warm on one side and cool on another. 'Strange…' Heat usually spread out evenly through matter, especially through metal, an excellent heat conductor. A bit puzzled by it and its simplicity, she asked the hedgehog without taking her eyes off of the necklace, "Do you always wear this? I've seen you wear it at least twice."

"Are you mentioning when you burst into my room as I was changing?" She could almost feel him smirking at her as she blushed once more and retorted, "I did not _burst _in! I thought it was the closet!" Her fuse was growing short with him mentioning that incident, although this time she did bring it upon herself. "And you're avoiding my question."

He sighed, his breath sweeping across her naked hand, and she randomly noted that she had taken off her gloves and put them on the table beside her bed before he answered her, "Yes, I do wear this; I usually have it either underneath my shirt or in my pockets." He looked at her as if daring her to say something about it, before he asked, "Why do you ask?"

"…No reason." She let go of the pendant as if it had burned her and turned away; with the dream still fresh in her mind, she was a bit uncomfortable and thought that maybe she shouldn't have been so cocky. "I just…you just don't seem like the religious type, is all." She shrugged, mentally trying to ease off the tension she felt being near him right now. "Curiosity, I guess."

"And you know how the saying goes," he commented wryly, and she rolled her eyes and scoffed. She scowled at him, wishing he'd someday take the time to listen to himself and grow a real sense of humor. "Oh, yes, I've been told it so many times that I even say it to myself whenever I get interested in something." She turned and stepped away a bit so that she could look around his room, a bit comforted by the fact that it was just as plain as hers; although he had his own stuff in the room, there just wasn't that touch of personality, and so she took a bit of consolation that she wasn't alone on suffering miserably (although he didn't seem like he cared). It was silent in the room as she examined everything, frowning a bit at the neatly made bed. 'He hasn't gone to sleep at _all?_'

She turned back and was going to ask him about it, but was surprised when he was suddenly standing right in front of her. Too deep in her thoughts was she that she didn't notice him standing up and walking over to her. Once more, there was barely a few inches between them, and her breath caught in her throat as she came nose-to-cross with the pendant again. It was so close that, if she wanted to, she could reenact the dream and grab it… She mentally shook herself as her eyes trailed up to look at him staring down at her. His eyes were filled with curiosity, satisfaction, and something like mischievousness that swirled around like a swarm of angry bees, and it took her a moment before she noticed that his mouth was moving. She barely caught the words, "…saying that to yourself often?"

"…Hn?" She blinked owlishly, thoroughly confused, and he smirked at her and repeated, "Have you been saying that phrase to yourself often? As in, since we've left HQ?"

Wondering what he was getting at, her eyes flowed over to the ceiling and she answered, "Mmmmm, a couple of times."

He smirked impishly, making her feel a bit uncomfortable near him, and he leaned forward so that they were nearly touching and said in a voice that was like velvety silk wrapped around an assassin's knife, "So, you've been…_interested_ in something?"

For some reason, his teasing had more of an affect on her than he could imagine. She gulped as images from her dream came back to her, and her face started doing impressions of a tomato as she stuttered, "W-what are you t-talking about…?" She didn't know why she was so nervous; all of a sudden, her arms quivered, and her tail twitched anxiously. Something wasn't right, something…was all too familiar…something…dreaming…

That was it! Something happened like that in her dream! Her damn dream just had to mess with her head, _now_, of all times! He wasn't exactly helping, either; he just _had _to stand so close to her and just _had _to look like he shouldn't be single or…aww, _dammit!_ 'I am never going to sleep ever, _ever, __**ever**_ again.' With that vow done and over with, she gulped and took a shaky step back, as if she was going to collapse. "I…I think I'll go back to my room now." Turning on her heel to leave, she was only stopped from escaping the nightmare when suddenly his hand was on her shoulder. "Are you running, cat?"

Her muscles locked up, and her mind froze at the touch. Despite his cold and calculating personality, much like the pendant had shown, his hand was very warm even through her clothing. It was a very firm hold, showing (once again) that he was a man of purpose, and she hadn't realized that it was quite chilly in the rooms until he had touched her. She shivered in reaction, to which the contact was quickly broken, and she was grateful for the loss (although now she felt extremely cold). As she tried to quickly regain control over herself, she stammered, "I-I need some sleep." She then stiffly walked to her room as swiftly as possible, not caring how she left the door between the rooms open as she crawled into her bed and covered her head with her blanket. She had just backed down and let that damn hedgehog win a battle, after such a long time of her strong resolve and bitter feelings towards other people in particular, and it was all because of some goddamn dream!

"Damn," she cursed under her breath, "I am _never _sleeping _again._"

Unfortunately, just like that strong resolve of hers, her promise dissolved on the wind as she felt her eyelids grow droopier and heavier. Eventually, exhaustion from the day and night caused her to leave the conscious world to instead wander in the pits of her mind, which to her were the pits of Hell itself. The warmth unnerved her, remnants of her last waking thoughts, and she pulled the blanket down so she could breathe easier and sighed heavily in her sleep. Fortunately for her, she had no other dreams, and was left in the darkness of the room to be overcome by the even deeper darkness of her mind.

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

The hedgehog still sat at the desk hours later, staring at the papers that seemed to mock him as his eyelids drooped and his elbow slipped further down the desk. He tried to sit up and stay awake, but he had gone the last two nights without sleep. There was no way in hell he could do it _another _night. He wondered why _she_ could go to sleep so easily when she _still _hadn't done _any _of her work! 'That feline –'

He stopped, his mouth twitching with the ghost of a smirk, and corrected himself. 'No, _Shadowpaw_ – she's as lazy as a sloth.'

Sitting up straight once more in an attempt to not fall asleep at his desk, he continued to write as he thought about the feline's behavior when she had come into his room earlier. He had been puzzled when her expression changed from exhaustion to shock to disgust to pure hatred and anger, but he had acted as normally as possible, until she had started to smile at some inside thought. And her answer just made her seem even more insane, with her walking over to get a closer look at his pendant rather oddly, as if trying to change the subject, like he would give her some answers to her questions. He did, to some extent; after all, in the game of 'war', trading of secrets is done with equal exchange, for the most part.

Then, he remembered the hand that had grabbed his necklace: her right one. On the back of it, he had noticed but hadn't really paid any heed to a scar that went across it at an angle, starting from below her pinky and ending at the base of her thumb. After he also noted that her hands were white and that she didn't even _need _anything on them for her to look as if she had on gloves, he started to ponder where she had gotten the scar. 'Considering she's a pilot with a fiery temper, there are many possibilities: a fight with someone else, accident (phhbt, right), or of her own doing. All of them are confusing and require in-depth explanations.' He frowned, then shook his head to scatter the thoughts from it as he reminded himself that he was supposed to be working. Distractions were _not _something a pilot could afford to have.

He sat up straight again and went back to writing, yet inevitably his eyes finally closed while his arm slipped and his head hit the desk, but he was out like a light before it even touched the cool surface.

_T_-**A**-I-_L_-**S**-&-_C_-**R**-E-_A_-**M**

"Hey, Tails!" The rabbit ran up to her cousin sitting at his desk and writing things on blueprints, and she tilted her head curiously. "Whatchya doing?" She put her hands behind her back and started to rock back and forth on her feet like the child she was, smiling brightly at him. She didn't understand why he was always so busy; after all, Sonic and Knuckles were nice enough to do most of the work, and Tails didn't have anything to do otherwise, so what could he possibly be spending his time on?

"Hm…" The fox put a hand on his chin and thought. 'How could that be?' He barely noticed Cream standing there as he bent back over to continue with his studying, frowning at what sat before him. He had been surprised to one day have Sly in his office, but before he could get a chance to look at him starry-eyed, the red fox laid down the facts. It seemed that the Black monsters had cut into the radios of Shadowpaw and her team and somehow blocked their escort from receiving or transmitting any signals, meanwhile grafting their _own _signal to correspond with the radios and allow them to speak to them. And somehow, they had reverted everything back to normal without a scratch or sign of how they did it. It was just mind-boggling, but he was determined to figure it out.

"Hmm…maybe if I recalibrated the…" He trailed off as he began to do some formulas, doing every which way and thinking of every possibility to try to combat the problem the best he could. He didn't have time to slack off, and thankfully Sonic and Knuckles were doing their own paperwork so they didn't need him to check up on their Zoids. Working hard, he scribbled down a note while scratching out another, before suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder stop his hand from writing more. He looked up into the face of his rabbit cousin, and the look of worry was evident. He sighed and put down the pencil to tell her he was busy, but she went before he could start, "You've been working so hard for so long, Tails." She looked at him sadly and put up her hand to squeeze her pointer and thumb fingers together. "Can't you take an eensy-weensy little break?"

"I _can't, _Cream." He turned to look at the blueprints. "They need me…"

"But you can't just sit here all day and do nothing all day but scribble and think about theories and hypothesizes and stuff!" With her naivety and age, however, she stumbled over the words, and it took a moment before she got back to full-speed. "After all, you can't work on an empty stomach!" She held up a paper bag and offered, "Here."

Tails sighed and relented, grabbing the bag and setting it on top of one of the blueprints. There was no empty space on his desk, and he moved aside a couple of papers to find his pencil before starting to write once again. Cream looked at him, still worried, but she let him continue working as she sighed and went to look for Simmy. Perhaps he would play some games with her. She shut the door behind her and skipped off down the hall, her smile appearing on her face as soon as the problem's presence had dissipated. She hummed a bit as she went, looking down other hallways for her other cousin but not getting any luck.

The fox shook his head at the door as it closed and turned back to his desk, glancing at all of his work. He sighed and shook his head. "I wish Shadowpaw was here…" Sure, she would interrupt his work and end up putting him behind a bit, but…she was always there to cheer him up, as well as tease him, and she was sort of like an older sister to him. In fact, with all of her teasing and her playful smirks, she was _exactly _like a big sister. Now, the silence he experience freaked him out a bit, before he reminded himself that she would be back and he would soon be wishing for her to get on her next mission as soon as possible.

"Being a little kid sucks," he murmured to himself as he went back to start his work, but then a knock on the door made him stop with his pencil hovering just before the paper. He sighed at _another _interruption and said grudgingly, "Come in."

"Now, is that a dying animal I hear?" The voice made his ears perk up, and he turned in his chair as the door opened to reveal his 'idol' standing before him. His eyes widened as the red fox chuckled, "Oh, no, that's just the sound of a pouting little boy." At first he just blinked, but then Tails realized he had just been made fun of, and he crossed his arms and pouted as Sly laughed. He walked over and ruffled his bangs good-naturedly and told him, "Alright, stop sulking and get your mind off of Shadowpaw; we've got a job for you to do."

Tails nodded, but then frowned at him and asked, "Hey, how do _you _know that I'm brooding over Shadowpaw?"

Sly grinned at him and answered, "Because you've been like this since they've gone, and I'm pretty sure you aren't like this because _Shadow _left." Then, he put a hand to his chin and his grin deepened into a mischievous smirk. "Although, I _do _miss the presence of that _other _pretty lady with 'em; she was _quite _good company." He grinned to himself, and then, at Tails' confusion, he shook his head and said, "Well, come on, then! We've got work to do!"

_G_-**A**-B-_R_-**I**-E-_L_-**L**-A

The flying fox (**A/N: a type of bat**) sighed and shook her head. She turned and shouted down the hallway, "It's still not working, Kicker!" After a moment of silence, she mentally cursed the kangaroo and wondered if he really even _did _anything! Her _other _partner certainly didn't, the damn bird… Well, fine! If they weren't going to fix anything, she was going to do it her–

"Hey, Gabriella! I got the communicators to work finally!" She turned just as Kicker ran into the room excitedly, waving said device in the air. His ears were so big and floppy that they laid down flat against his head like a puppy-dog's, and his long yet thick tail flopped onto the ground as he stopped running and started to jog in place. He never seemed to be able to sit still when she wanted him to, and yet when she needed him to do something he was just too lazy. Seriously, the people she had to put up with!

She motioned for him to come over and told him, "Well, come on, come on! No need to be a rabbit and hog it!" She giggled as he pouted at her, but he then handed it over and she pressed the 'call' button to get HQ. They had been trying to get a hold of them with their transport's communications, but it had been blocked for some reason, and so they had to try to get their neglected communicators to charge up so they could use them instead. Now, they pressed the visual button as the other specialist came into the room so that they would get to see who they were talking to, and waiting impatiently for the ringing to stop. Finally, it was picked up, but even before the face flickered onto the screen they started to talk at the speed of light.

"What the _hell_ happened –"

"You'll _never_ believe –"

"Those idiots just _had _to –"

"_Hey! _You ain't a little genius yourself, you –"

"Will you two just be –"

"_Quiet!_" They all shut their mouths with an audible and simultaneous '_click!_', and they stared at the red fox before them who sighed and shook his head. Kicker got a bit brighter and said, "Oh, CTM! Thank _God _that you're –"

"_Hey, __**some **_of us don't believe in 'God'." The bird sneered at him, and the kangaroo glared at him as Gabriella sighed and went on to talk to the Chief of Technology and Mechanics. "So, what happened down there? We couldn't grab a hold of you with our communications for a while there."

"Well," he began, "this isn't the only case that it's happened with; not too long ago, another team out on a mission experienced difficulty talking to each other as they encountered some Kingdom pilots. We think that the Kingdom may be the cause of it."

"Really?" The flying fox frowned at the news, her wings twitching on her back in thought. "We haven't seen heads or tails of any Zoids, let alone the enemy's. Ya sure?"

"Yes, positive," he nodded to reassure them, then turned to someone standing behind him…who the screen couldn't see. Now off screen, Sly said, "Now, Tails, how about you take a seat so they can see you."

Gabriella watched in amazement as suddenly an orange fox appeared and adjusted the camera so it was level with him, and she exclaimed before she could stop herself, "It's a Joey!" At the sound of the kangaroo term, Kicker immediately looked up from his argument with his partner and mumbled, "Wha? Who said _what_ to a wallaby?"

The flying fox scowled and told him, "No, I'm just saying that it's a kid!" She pointed at the screen, and all three of them leaned forward to stare at the flushed face of the young fox. Sly, still off screen, chuckled and told them, "Don't be fooled, guys; he may be small, but he'll probably take over as Chief of Technology and Mechanics one day!" He laughed a bit more and encouraged him, "Show 'em, sport!"

Tails gulped and looked at all of the eyes staring at him. "Uhh…" He cleared his throat and then started with the confidence of familiarity. "What was the particular magnitude and range of the waves your ELEFANT received from the strong foreign electromagnetic force that disrupted the radio waves of your data lines?"

There was complete silence on the specialists' side as Sly's raucous and wild laughter rang out on the other. Gabriella stared at the young fox with wide eyes and breathed, "Whoa…that's a real shocker."

Kicker blinked. "_That_ knocked _me _from my trip to see the moon!" The bird beside him nodded in agreement, for once.

"Alright," Sly came back onto the screen, a childish grin still plastered onto his face at what he had surprised them with, and he nodded, "now time for a full report." The other fox nodded as well and got himself comfortable to listen to them as they began to explain what had happened to them.


	12. Pushing the Limits

**(**_**A Note:**__** Thanks to AmyAddict1, we now finally have a permanent name for this story! 'The Perfect Harmony of Hearts', or tPHoH for short! I do abbreviations of all of my stories, just for you to know.**_**)**

**Chapter Eleven**

**Pushing the Limits**

**(A/N: Argh, I'm so **_**lazy!**_**)**

_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

The bat, surprisingly, woke up early that morning, with the feeling that she needed to be up. She stared at the wall for a while, wondering what to do, before she finally decided to make herself useful and got out of her (largely sized and comfy) bed. As she walked out, however, she noticed how Shadowpaw's door was left ajar to the hallway, and so curiosity overcame her and made her poke her head in to glance around a bit. She saw the feline still knocked out cold, but she had moved around so much during the night that she had fallen off of her bed. She didn't seem disturbed, however, as she lay sprawled on the floor and dozed, dead to the world. The bat tried not to laugh and wake her up, instead choosing to grin at her nearly drooling on the floor, but then something caught her eye. The door that led to Shadow's room was open as well, and she pondered why that was so. After all, they hated each other and wanted as much space between them as possible, so _why _would the door that connected their two rooms let their _air _mingle? More than just a little curious, she stepped past the boundary and into the hedgehog's room to see where he was at.

She was surprised to find him asleep at his desk, looking as peaceful as if he only just found the sweet, dark embrace of the angel of Rest that night. Or, perhaps it had been late and just turning morning before he got to sleep. She walked up to him, being careful to tread lightly so he wouldn't wake up suddenly, and looked over at his desk to see what he had stayed up to work on. Her gaze fell across several reports, as well as detailed explanations of the models and weaponry the enemy used back when they confronted them. She thought about taking and sending a copy of one of them, but if he woke up and found one missing, suspicion and tension would skyrocket in the Hover. So, she instead decided to skim the lines for a bit, taking a good long look and finding really nothing of interest except of the style of weapons the Kingdom used, and went back the way she came to leave as little evidence of her visit as possible.

No need to get caught _now,_ after all; she's worked too hard to screw up after getting so far.

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_ S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

Much to Shadowpaw's surprise, and Shadow's dismay, the feline woke up soon after Rouge (unbeknownst to either of them) left, before him. Upon her (a bit sore) awakening, she decided that she needed to get out of the cramped carrier Zoid and catch up on some needed training (in her opinion). She was already long gone by the time the hedgehog sat up at his desk, and he looked around in annoyance wondering where he was for a moment before it all came back to him. He frowned, wondering how he could have let something as _weak _as exhaustion overcome him, but what was past was past, and so he sighed and stood up to stretch his arms out over his head as he yawned widely. He actually felt better after that sleep, and so he let his error slide since he was in a better mood than usual. He could live with it, as long as he didn't do it _again._

Then, with that over and done with, he walked over to the door connecting his room with the feline's and went to close it when he realized she wasn't there. Frowning, he wondered if he had somehow allowed himself to sleep in for _too _long, but his notions were disproved when Rouge came into the room with a yawn and saw him standing there, a bit confused. She blinked, as if not expecting him awake, and said, "Wow, you guys went out like a couple of lights, and yet you _both __**still**_wake up nearly on time." She shook her head. "Unbe_lievable._"

"Where is she," he inquired, trying to sound indifferent and hoping he succeeded. He was actually quite irked that he was last to awaken, now that he thought about it. Not that it was a race or anything, but sleeping-in could point to laziness, and he was _not _lazy.

"Oh," the bat waved her hand nonchalantly, "she's just out to do some practice runs or something. She said she'd be back within an hour or so."

He nodded, not really paying too much attention to her, and stepped back into his room and cleaned up the mess on his desk, mindful to close the door behind him. After a while, though, interest reared its ugly head and caused him to want to snoop and pry into the feline's business. He then quickly finished organizing his things and requested to launch his Zoid out as well. "After all," he said coolly, "if she's already out there, I won't have to wake her up to do the damn patrol." Rouge just gave an airy laugh at the comment and shooed him off, and soon he was racing across the sands to find the absent feline.

Meanwhile, she was running through the desert as well, going in a wide three-hundred-and-sixty degree sprint to examine things in the immediate area and such. Eventually, she stopped at a certain spot and decided that a huge hunk of rock would be her 'opponent' for her practice session. Remembering how clumsy and cumbersome her practice Zoid, the white Command Wolf, seemed to her, she smirked at the chance to do something in her Saix without it being an emergency. She faced the rock, and she could hear the wind even in the cockpit blowing against and around it. After a moment, she took a deep breath and gripped the arm of the chair tighter. "Here we go," she muttered to herself, before she narrowed her eyes and charged at the rock.

She didn't complete the move, however, instead darting to the side to avoid an imaginary shot as she gave a few blasts of her own and ran around the rock. She again leapt up and back, and as soon as she touched the ground she darted left, then right, and then forward again in a fake slash attack. As soon as her laser-strike claws retracted back, she let loose a barrage of shots, switching tactics to the offensive maneuver of charging once more. She was a flurry of motion, dodging and weaving from pretend shots and making it seem like an epic dance of sand and steel. Lights danced across the surface of the rock as her gun unloaded on it, and her Zoid's paws were rarely on the ground for long as she either sprinted or dodged, charged or fell back, slashed or shielded. She even stretched out her boosters a bit, making a full circle around the rock in the amount of time it took for her to count to twenty in her head. This was different than from her Command Wolf, for she was more familiar with her fellow feline than her practice Zoid. _That _one was only to save trips to refill her Zoid's energy reserves and such at the base, but with the Hover Cargo so close by they had a nearly endless supply so she was in no fear of exhausting them yet.

As she went to do a fake charge again to the rock, she saw a shot that wasn't hers hit the rock and bounce off into the blue sky. An image came to mind, of the Geno Saurer and the electricity flying off of its claws, and she was about to snarl and go berserk on the rock before she realized that it wasn't real: it was only her nightmares trying to take over her actions in realty again. She took a deep breath, forcing the instinct to react back down her throat, and instead turned the head to see what _had _fired the shot standing not too far away from her. She scowled as the Shadow Fox came closer still, and she told him, "What do _you_ want?" She then turned back to her practice dummy and told him, "Leave me alone; I'm practicing, and I'm _trying _to concentrate."

She tried to continue her work, hoping that he would go off on a patrol or something, but instead he did quite the opposite. She hopped to the side to avoid his shot and shouted at him, "What the hell?! What are you shooting at me for?" He appeared on the screen in front of her, and she scowled at his trademark smirk. 'That little…!' He was planning something.

Then, he let loose another barrage of shots, and she cursed and yelled as she continued to dodge, "_Hey!_ What are you _doing?!_"

"You _said _you were practicing," he replied calmly, still smirking with an impish gleam in his eyes, and gave a half-shrug. "I just assumed that perhaps _I _would be a better 'practice partner' than that _rock _over there." He watched her face as she frowned, and she actually looked like she was considering the 'offer'. He was drumming his fingers on the controls, as if telling her to hurry up. She narrowed her eyes and scowled, to which Shadow took as her accepting it, and she growled, "And to 'assume' makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'." But, she backed up her Zoid a few paces as her face dissolved from the screen, and he smirked at the prospect of 'fighting' with her. 'She'll lose,' he told himself confidently, and he turned the Fox to face her as it crouched down slightly as if preparing to spring onto her. Her Zoid yowled at it in challenge, and his answered back with a sort of growl mixed with the roar of a powerful engine as they held their battle stances, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Kussia hadn't said she was a successful hit-and-run pilot for nothing.

In the blink of an eye, she had slammed the lever down on her boosters, and she shot like an arrow towards him in an attempt to get a fully-powered shot. But he seemed to have predicted it, for he simply dodged back a bit so that she just fell short and then came forward to give her a counter swipe across the face. Immediately, her pupils diminished to mere dots as she snarled and whipped her Zoid around like one would spin an umbrella, deflected his paw and forcing him to back up. She then stopped her rotation to shoot a couple of rounds at him, and she anticipated him dodging and tried to quickly pounce on top of him, using the strategy she had used to decimate many opponents in the training grounds. Alas, he shook her off of his back and smacked his tail into her side, making her stumble a bit and take a moment to steady herself. He took advantage of that and rammed into her side, making her stumble further and nearly tumble off of her paws.

She growled, her eyes mere slits as her anger boiled almost to her breaking point, and she shot a bit of shots while backing away a bit. At first, the hedgehog thought that perhaps she was retreating from him, and he smirked as he followed her until she backed herself up against the rock she had originally been attacking. After a few moments, though, he found out that that was a mistake.

As soon as he was close enough, her Saix leapt up above his oncoming shots, and he jerked his head up to watch her paws have contact with the wall of rock. Then, she shoved off of it, and she soared over his head as his eyes widened with slight shock. Then, before he could turn around to confront her face-to-face, her guns turned to lock-on to him and dotted his metal hide with sparks as she slashed at his tail fiercely. He had to leap forward to escape it, although he was still scored by the tips of her claws, and he whirled his Shadow Fox around to stare at her, adrenaline making his hand grip the controls hard.

"You fight pretty well," her voice grudgingly admitted as her face appeared on the screen, and he gave her a smirk that she had come to see as a challenge. "Same to you, Shadowpaw_._"

She seemed slightly surprised that he had used her name, and he used the moment to fake a slash at her side. She immediately leapt back, and a scowl marred her face as she glared at him.

"Cheater."

"At least I'll win."

About an hour of fighting, and even in the protection of their cockpits they could feel the exhaustion in themselves as well as their Zoids. They froze to stare each other down as each heard the other's panting on the radio, and Shadow's drained face appeared on her screen with sweat glistening on his forehead. With all of their dancing and striking, her hands had sweated so much that they actually slipped once or twice. His offer came as a blessing when he told her, "Let's leave it at a draw and return to the Hover."

"I wasn't aware that this was a battle," she drawled dryly, with her throat parched and her fingers twitching with all of their exertion, and she was a bit exasperated when his wry smirk came up once more. She had no idea how he could always be so sarcastic and taunting at all times, even in his exhaustion (as the previous night had revealed), and she wanted to tear her fur out, or, more preferably, his, the next time he did it. He chuckled a bit, adding to her irritation further, and replied, "Perhaps it wasn't. But, to me, it most certainly was a challenge." He gave her a meaningful look and half-complimented half-insulted her, "I'm a bit surprised at your abilities in the pilot's seat; they're _much_ better than the battle against the Kingdom earlier."

Her face grew red, but whether it was from fury or embarrassment even _he_ couldn't tell, and she turned off her screen and radio so that he couldn't see the rest of her emotions or reactions play out. She had learned of his inspecting habits. He chuckled again, enjoying how aggravated he could get her and vowing that he would continue to do so until he grew bored of it as he turned his Zoid to follow the (probably fuming) feline sprinting back to their traveling headquarters.

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

She sighed as she laid in her bed and stared up at her ceiling again, thinking hard about subjects she didn't really want to go over. But, her mind seemed to find some reason to bring them up, and so she finally took the time now to reluctantly look over it all.

First off: her dreams.

'They seemed so…_real._' She sighed again, knowing that this was really only a lost cause and shouldn't even be dwelt on. But, everything that happened in them looked, tasted, smelled, _felt…_like it was bona fide, _actual memories._ Except for that _scandalous_, _**creepy**_ dream that Shadow invaded, it seemed like they had actually happened. And the even _creepier_ thing was that, at times like these, where she would stop to think about important and trivial things, that dream would come back, and she would wonder what spawn of _Hell_ thought _**that**_ up! 'I mean, _come on;_ me and that…that _hedgehog?!_' She scoffed and turned on her side, staring at the wall as her thoughts continued to swirl around like a whirlpool of ideas and desires…

'…Desires?' She shivered, not wanting to delve into that area. Deciding to skip that subject and go onto the next, she frowned and went back to deep contemplation.

Secondly: that _hedgehog._

"_Oooooh……_" She scowled and growled at the mere thought of him, although a bit of red stained her cheeks as well in frustration. He was the _only one_ that she had _ever met_ (besides Kussia, and perhaps even Sly) that could irritate her so by just mentioning his _name,_ humiliate her so much that she wouldn't even want to look at herself in the _mirror,_ and give her such strange feelings and revelations to new ideas at the _same time._ It was like he was a new pet; he annoyed her and made her go crazy, and yet it seems that he has slowly seeped his way into nearly all of her thoughts, and it was _crazy_ now to think of him _not_ being her (reluctant) partner. Of course, _now,_ he seemed to enjoy annoying her, for whenever she would give either her famous growls or scowls he would smirk and look accomplished or triumphant, like it was a _game._

She didn't like to be toyed with.

'I'll get him back…_somehow…_'

And lastly: her parents.

She groaned, wondering why her mind constantly wanted to go over it. But, every time, she would relent and give it a bit of thought, and this time was no exception. She breathed in and out deeply as her mind wandered back to when she was little, still wearing frilly dresses and ballerina slippers that her mother forced her to wear (although back then, she was more girly than she had grown up to be). Kussia had been a teenager then, and he would talk regularly with her mother and father as often as his _own_ father would, and she knew even back then that he was fit for the job of running the Crusaders. She had once asked her father what the Crusaders were, and she closed her eyes and slowly recited what he had told her.

"_The Crusaders are knights for the people,_" she whispered to herself, "_who hold up the sword of courage and the shield of integrity to battle the dragon seed of evil. They are the words of hope that took root in a strong foundation and solidified into candles that shone brighter than any of the shadows but could not be put out as easily with just a breath._" She took a deep breath and sighed it out, as if experimenting with the idea herself. "_They take a hold of the bulls' horns and throttle it into submission, taking Destiny into their own hands and Power into their spirit._"

She gulped, a bit hesitant to continue with the rest, but her mouth had its own ideas as it let the words stumble from her lips,"_Many doubt their bravery and think that they are wolves beneath a sheep's hide, but _I_ know what I stand for, and _I_ will fight for it 'til the bitter curtain call of life: freedom. In the end…_"

"We are all heroes."

She snapped her eyes open and sat up in a flash to look at Shadow standing in her doorway with his arms crossed in a relaxed fashion that showed he had been there for at least a couple of minutes. She gulped, feeling heat well up in her face once again, and as she cursed him to 'Kingdom come' she stammered, "W-W-What are you _doing _here?"

"Raptor Rank Shane Fur," he said, as if he hadn't heard her question, "presented that speech to many of his colleges, as well as his daughter, and his wife agreed with every word that he said wholeheartedly." He then stepped into the room, his eyes trained on her as he continued on. "Those words, and variations of them, have changed many people's views on the Crusaders' gallant escapade to eradicate the black scum and free the people of Mobius." He continued his journey over to her bed until he stood before her, staring down at her as she sat on her bed, paralyzed by horror and shock at his words. She gulped at his unrelenting gaze as he cleared his throat and said, "They were the ones that my father told me a – a wise man once told him." His hesitation did not go unnoticed, but she didn't pay too much attention to his fumble as she wondered where he was getting at.

"_Now_ I remember why your story sounded so familiar." At the confused look on her face, he explained, "When you told me of how your parents died, I couldn't help but find that it rung a bell. _Now_ I know." He looked at her seriously, as if it all made sense now. "You're the daughter of Shane and Moon Fur, two of our best pilots."

"S-so?" For some reason, this really made her nervous that he knew of her lineage, and she gulped as he stared her down and found that she couldn't glare back at him. It was just frightening that he could recite the words her father had said so fluently. "They were two of the best, a-and yet they go and kill themselves. Ironic, _I_ have to say." She gulped again and crossed her arms, scooting back a bit so that she could put her back against the smooth wall as a solid foundation to support her. "And _me_, their _daughter_, _I'm_ stuck following in their footsteps like a stupid little puppy." Anger and frustration towards herself came out involuntarily with her voice, and she tried to keep it in check by regulating her breathing, but that only served to clear her mind and give her a better understanding of her aggravation. "How's _that_ for irony?"

He sighed, as if he had it all figured out now, and that just ticked her off even more. She narrowed her eyes, not liking the way he was seeming all smart and above everything, and she snapped at him, "Hey, how about _you_ go and call Kussia and tell him 'oh, look, AR, I've figured her out!' so that he can give you a _medal_ and tell you 'good job, you past the test' so that you'll be promoted to _Rhinoceros_ or something and _leave me alone!_"

He made a move as if to speak, but she just crossed her arms and turned away, not wanting to listen to him talk down at her anymore. He sighed again, this time irritably though, and after a moment of thinking he cleared his throat and pulled a 'rank' on her. "Tiger Rank pilot, I demand that you pay _attention_ to your superiors." Although it really just served to piss her off even more, it grabbed her attention, and she turned her head to glare lividly at him as he coldly stared back at her. There were sparks flying between them, and yet it looked as if she was the only one really angry as he just looked a bit irritated by her and her stubbornness. She did not make a move to speak, and so he was the one who had to break the tension.

"Shadowpaw –"

"_Tiger Rank Shadowpaw Midnight Fur,_" she spit back bitterly, feeling something she hadn't picked up in a while welling up in the pit of her stomach; regret, guilt. She gulped, but this time to get rid of the lump in her throat as she tried to continue glaring at him as fiercely as possible, not prone to back down at any cost. After making sure she wouldn't say anything else, he started again:

"_Cat,_" he went back to that annoying nickname, but then he calmly explained, "your parents were acquaintances of mine, and although we never really _met_ each other, I would hear many things about you." At the glare he received with this comment, he smirked and quoted, "_Oh, she is such the adorable little girl, Shadow! You would _love_ her!_"

"Oh, _great!_" She threw her hands up into the air, wondering why God was trying to punish her. 'What did I do wrong _this_ time?' She glared at him and spat, "So, you're going to _blackmail_ me or something with something that _both_ of our dead parents said? _Lovely!_" She clenched her hands into fists, the claws poking out slightly to graze her naked hands and cause them to turn red with irritation. "That's just _perfect!_"

"_No,_" he glared at her, seeming to get annoyed, but she didn't care. He was always annoying her, so it was time that she returned the favor. He then took a deep breath and closed his eyes so that he would calm down, and went on, "The last thing that my mother said about you was that she would like to invite you over to dinner. That was the day before she fell direly ill and was secluded to her bed. The next day," he paused for a moment, "she died."

With that numbing comment like a bunch of ice to her white-hot anger, it cooled her down enough so that she would keep quiet, and a sort of pang of hurt and sympathy that she labeled as female instincts made her wince and gulp. She tried to push the pity away so that it wouldn't affect her fury, but it stayed there rooted in her chest and made it difficult to breathe the harder she shoved it away, until she gave up and let it throb in time with her heart. As she fought a losing battle with her emotions, his eyes opened and he stared at her, making her feel as if she was behind glass with a sign that said 'do not tap on glass'. She closed her eyes to escape his roving gaze, not wanting him to see the sympathy she felt for him, for it would surely show that she had lost this battle as well. Feeling crushed with all of these defeats on her mind, she was now calm enough so that he could continue on with his point.

"The last thing that my _father_ said to me," she winced, ready for something worse, "was that you had the nicest dress on that day. It was right after a huge parade, where we met very briefly. You were on your father's shoulders, pointing at the huge float of a dinosaur Zoid and asking if you could be a pilot like him someday."

She opened her eyes in shock, realizing that he was right, and her mind went back all of those years ago that she had locked up in her mind, like a monster that she couldn't dare to feed anymore before it consumed her whole. As she frantically searched through the memories like files and folders, she eventually found the one she was looking for as she stared blankly at him – no, _through_ him. Before the hedgehog could continue, she whispered the words that her father had told her in response to her question.

"_Only if you think you can. Crusaders…_"

"_Remember, the Crusaders light the way." He looked up at the bouncy little girl on his shoulders with a grin. "Will you follow it, or carve your own path?"_

As the realization dawned on her, she found that she still tried to resist it. He _couldn't_ be so familiar with her father's words; they had been spoken with care and gentleness…nothing that _he_ could _ever_ amount to. But…they were all heroes…right? Foolish people…who ruined the lives of those around him. But, if a _hero_ spoke such 'great' words…doesn't that mean that _he_ could say them, as well? Confused, and terrified, she grew defensive and glared at the hedgehog as she spat, "You sorry sack of _almighty __**shit.**_ You think that you're all freakin' _powerful_ and an _immense_ force to be reckoned with, thinking that you're smarter than _everyone __**else**_, when you really don't know _anything_ about me." With her darker anger rearing its ugly head, she sat up straighter to give him a piece of her mind as viciously and spitefully as possible. "And you think that some sudden dawning or, or realization that somehow _pins us together_ is supposed to make everything fit like a puzzle that took a while to figure out. I am _not_ a toy, _rat,_ I am –"

It was then that she suddenly found herself pinned against the wall she had propped herself up against, and as she stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the hedgehog who held her wrists tightly in his grip and flattened her on the wall she came face-to-face with him, staring into his fiery hate-filled eyes. In them, the normal poker-face was dropped for a more ferocious and angry expression, swirling like a cloud of mad bees as his blood-red eyes accused her lividly. They were burning with white-hot fury, and yet they looked at her so coldly, as if regarding her as nothing more than an irritating insect that had buzzed in his ear for the last time. It was as if, underneath that mask, there was an entirely different person hiding there, only showing his dangerous face in the light of something that challenged and pushed him too far. And _she_ had broken the last straw, pushed the last button, and tipped the scale of his patience, and she was going to pay for it. Feeling fear creep up her spine like a cold sickly hand going to wring her neck, she froze at his probing gaze and prayed to _God_ to help her.

She was actually afraid.

"_You,_" the hedgehog spat in her face, as if his spit was venom that could burn her away from his sight, "do _not_ talk to _me_ like that. You are _nothing, __**cat.**_"

It was frightening when his words hit her, for she could feel them as if they were a steel blade cutting into her side, ripping out her stomach and twisting it around like a sick unicorn's horn. It reminded her of the voice of that Oak back on the sands, taunting her and belittling her as she stood to face him, and yet it was worse, because he was right there, gripping her like he would a cockroach. Her vision blurred thankfully so that she could not look at his face with every detail, but his eyes were still crystal clear and swam on a sea of darkness that nearly consumed her whole. She felt like she was going to go insane if she did not escape him, for everything was just too much for her, and yet when she opened her mouth to – oh, to do _anything;_ scream, bite, command him to let go – nothing came out but a soft whimper.

At this small sound, suddenly something clicked in his eyes, and they widened a fraction of an inch as they seemed to clear up, like clouds parting after a rather nasty storm. The hatred and loathing was soon replaced with an almost puzzled expression followed by something that could be classified as disgusted. With a grunt, he abruptly let go of her and let her slump against the wall as he got off of the bed and crossed the threshold into his own chambers before shutting the door rather forcefully. As soon as he was gone, she slumped over and fell face-first into a pillow, scrunching her eyes shut so that the images in her head would go away. But they wouldn't leave her, and as she kept staring at Shadow's eyes on the back of her eyelids, she was reminded of the smoldering remains of the Dark Horn, with those ghastly eyes staring her down across the hot sands.

"_You are nothing…"_

She got into a sitting position and grabbed her knees up to her chest so that she could bury her face as if to hide from the rest of the world.

'I am nothing.'


	13. Stitching Up Wounds With a Pinch of Salt

**(**_**A Note:**__** Thanks to AmyAddict1, we now finally have a permanent name for this story! 'The Perfect Harmony of Hearts', or tPHoH for short! I do abbreviations of all of my stories, just for you to know.**_**)**

**Chapter Twelve**

**Stitching Up Wounds with a Pinch of Salt**

"…Hey, are ya there, Shadow?"

"_Yes, Alpha Rex…I am._"

"Good, just making sure that the communications were alright, after what happened before – and why do you sound more depressing than usually?"

"_I think you mean 'depressed', Kussia…and I'm not._"

"I _don't_ mean 'depressed' – right now, you're starting to get _me_ depressed."

"_Whatever…now what did you want from me, sir?_"

"Well, I –"

"Hey, is that Shadowpaw?"

"_No,_ Sly, it isn't."

"_How _dare_ you confuse _me_ for _her_!_"

"Yep, that's Shadow…erm, hi?"

"Sly, get out."

"Why? I was just coming to inform you that –"

"Wait; I'm _busy._"

"Of _course,_ I'm _sorry._ I'll just be leaving now, AR Almighty."

"If you keep rolling your eyes like that, your head will be rolling next!"

"Keep it short and simple, 'cause I've got _news!_"

"I'm sure you do…idiot."

"Heard that!"

"Heh…he's like my replacement for Shadowpaw when she's gone. Don't you agree, Shadow?"

"_What did you want?_"

"Hmph, fine, have no sense of humor. So…how's the weather?"

"_Dry._"

"How's the mission?"

"_Quiet._"

"…How's your teammates?"

"_Annoying._"

"Good, it seems everything is normal over there. Okay, _now,_ I want you to send me the visuals as of now."

"_Why do you need _me_ to…and can't you just check it yourself?_"

"Rule Number One of the Crusaders' Secret Handbook: Never do what you can get others to do _for_ you."

"_Of course…_"

"Besides, I want to make sure that what you see and I see add up; I don't want any funny business like earlier happening again."

"_Earlier…?_"

"Another team that was already out, a squad from the P.G.S.F., also had their communications cut from us, and neither them nor HQ could get a grasp of their surroundings when a huge sandstorm kicked up out of nowhere. Some _crazy_ things are happening around here."

"_Interesting…the visuals are sent, sir._"

"Good! Thank you, soldier, that'll be all for now. Oh, and Shadow?"

"_Hn?_"

"Are you keeping an eye out for her?"

"…_._"

"I asked you a _question,_ Shadow."

"_I…suppose…_"

"…Everything alright over there?"

"…_Fine. It's…fine._"

"…Well, try to keep her out of trouble. I know her, though, so I won't completely blame you if she goes berserk on another group of Kingdom pilots. Just…"

"…_Just…_what,_ sir?_"

"…Just don't push her, Shadow. She's unstable enough as it is…"

"…_Yes, sir. Over and out._"

"Over and out…"

"…So…can I come in, sir?"

"(Sigh) _Yes,_ Sly, you can. What the hell do you want?"

"Oh, nothing much, really…"

"Then _why_ did you have to interrupt me in the middle of an important conversation?"

"Because I wanted to give you _this,_ sir."

"Hmm…really…"

"Yes, sir."

"…You only give me respect when there's something serious going – oh, shit…"

"A penny for your thoughts, sir?"

"'Ten thousand pilots _dead_ in the first week'? 'Several others wounded'? What could have _possibly_ done this?"

"Not _what,_ Kussia, but _who._"

"…I see. _Sly –_"

"Yes, _sir!_"

"Contact the Zaurz (officers) of the highest rank you can and tell them to start collecting more pilots and training them, double-time. If you can, giving them a brief summary of the events over the last week with no particular detail. Perhaps this has happened to them, as well."

"Well…why wouldn't they have contacted us about it?"

"(Sigh) We have a sort of…competitive thing going around. They don't want to be the first to admit any flaws in their systems."

"Ah, so it's almost political…"

"It would be, if you could consider this damned organization a sort of democracy. Now, off you go!"

"Yes, _sir! _Oh!"

"_What?_"

"Here's your penny."

"What the hell are you – Sly, just, _go!_ Smart-ass…"

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-&-_C_-**R**-E-_A_-**M**

"Shadow! Oh, _Shaaaaaadow!_" The white bat came around the corner and handed the irritable hedgehog his communicator, and as he blinked in confusion she gave him a sly smirk and said in a sing-song voice, "It's your dear little _rabbit_ girl, Cream, was it?" At his nod, she gave an airy laugh and walked out of the kitchen, her hips swinging side-to-side in a confident rhythm. Shaking his head at her, Shadow walked over to his room and shut the door behind him softly, not wanting _anyone_ to hear his conversation. He gave a small glance to the door connecting his room to the feline's, but he shook his head and put the communicator on the desk as he pressed the button to activate the visuals. The screen popped up, and he found himself staring at not only the rabbit, but also the fox-boy, the squirrel-kid, and a bee all staring at him with smiles on their faces. As soon as they saw him, they waved and said in unison, "Hello, Mr. Shadow!"

He sighed. 'I think they purposely go out of their way to annoy me.' Casting that thought aside, he nodded in greeting, frowning when the boys stifled their giggles. Cream, however, just smiled and told him, "It's nice to see you, Mr. Shadow! I wanted to call you since it's been so long since you've left!" The fox-boy mumbled something about them 'only leaving a couple of days ago', but she pouted at him and pointed out, "You miss Ms. Shadowpaw, too, Tails!" He then looked at his feet, blushing slightly, before the rabbit went back to the screen and smiled at the hedgehog watching them all. "Ooh, and also, Mr. Shadow, I made a new friend!"

"Really?" He sounded bored, but Cream could see a bit of interest in his eyes as he glanced over to the bee, and as the new kid hovered closer to the screen so that he could be seen better he said, "Well, hi! My name's Charmy Bee! Nice to meet – _oww…_" He had tried to shake hands with him, but instead his hand had smacked the wall behind the screen, and as he cradled it and glared at the other kids giggling he muttered, "Nice to meet you…"

Shadow didn't understand why any of the children had gotten attached to him, but it was probably all because of Cream; she, for some odd reason, saw him as a big brother or something and always stuck around with him no matter what. Once she had even tried to enter the boys' bathroom, but he quickly escorted her to the other door, glaring at the people that dared to snicker. She seemed like she was a thorn in his side, but for some reason he could tolerate it, because at least he saw something in her that he didn't see in anyone else: innocence. Untouched by the evils of the world, filled with abounding hope and never-ending love that he couldn't even possibly begin to pretend to understand. That was the only reason he kept her around. Or, at least, that's what he told himself…

He put his attention back onto the screen, where Cream was already babbling on about something, and she ended it all with, "And can you _believe_ we're all _cousins?_" She giggled then, followed by some more laughing with the others, and he thought, 'Somehow, I seriously doubt that.' I mean, come on: a rabbit, a fox, a squirrel, and a _bee?_ 'Right. I'll believe that when the cat wears a dress.'

He stopped at that thought, immediately wondering why she had said she refused to wear them anymore. After all, she had worn one when she was little…but, maybe _that_ was the reason. Wouldn't want to conjure up old painful memories, probably. With this in his mind, he glanced once more at her door, but then he shook his head and went back to the communicator, determined not to dwell on it. 'Whatever happens to her is _her_ problem.'

Cream looked at the hedgehog curiously and naively asked, "So, how are Ms. Shadowpaw and Ms. Rouge doing? Are they well?" By the way he stiffened up slightly, she gave a small frown, but it seemed she was the only one to see his discomfort as the fox beside her bounced up with a smile. "Right! That's a good idea! I'll go call her now." He then scampered off to get his communicator with the sliding door shutting with a hiss behind him. The other two boys giggled, and they started up with a chorus of, "Shadowpaw and Tails, sitting in a tree –"

"I _heard_ that!"

They just giggled some more, and Cream couldn't help but smile at them. 'Ooh, but I shouldn't laugh about it!' She composed herself like a little princess with the thought, 'It's not nice to laugh at other people.' She then smoothed down her dress a little and put her full attention back on the hedgehog, saying a bit nervously, "Well, I guess Tails will tell us about them." When he seemed to relax a little, she brightened up, and then she began to tell him everything that had happened to her that day.

And, when I say _everything,_ I _mean __**everything.**_

'If I didn't like her,' Shadow grumbled silently, 'I would have shut the communicator by now.' Then, a name caught his attention as he listened to the last of, "…and then when Mr. Sonic came and told me that we had a new friend, I was very happy! But, I don't think he was too excited, because he had a frowny-face on." She used her fingers to bring the corners of her mouth down in an over exaggerated frown before giggling herself out of it. "She's really nice! Her name is Ms. Amy Rose, but she just wants me to call her Amy. She's a hedgehog, like Mr. Sonic, but she has her hair like dreadlocks like Mr. Sonic's echidna friend and she's pink!"

'Pink? I hate that color…but so does Sonic. Hm, I think this'll play out well.' He then smirked and opened his mouth to suggest, "I think you should tell Amy to make 'Mr. Sonic' a special present for him." When she smiled and said that was a good idea, he grinned. 'Phase One of Operation: Annoy the Damn Blue Nuisance from a Distance is in motion. Just have to wait and hear the results from Cream.' He let himself dwell on the satisfaction he got from that, before another thought made him ask the rabbit, "Why won't you call Shadowpaw by her name? I believe she has asked you several times." To himself, he thought, 'Not that I _care,_ but it doesn't make sense.'

"Oh…" Cream thought about it for a moment, looking up at the ceiling as she pondered, before she looked back down with a smile. "Oh, yeah! I remember now!" She giggled. "She made a bet with me that I wouldn't be able to wear a pair of pants, but then I said that she couldn't wear a skirt, and then in the end she lost the bet and now I'm allowed to call her Ms. Shadowpaw!" She nodded at his confused look. "It's true! She just asks sometimes because she hopes I'll forget about it and stop."

'It's not like her to be spiteful,' Shadow thought with a smirk, thinking that the feline deserved it for messing with a child. 'Stupid cat…'

Then, the door to the hallway opened with a hiss, and the feline he was just thinking of stood there in the doorway, her face turned to look down the hallway as if she couldn't bear to face him. As he looked at her with a strange feeling in his gut, he heard her mumble something about the Alpha Rex wanting him before walking back off in the direction of her room, leaving him baffled. '…She could have used _that_ door,' he thought, looking towards the one connecting their rooms, 'and…_why_ wouldn't she look at me?' Then, remembering the children on the other end of the communicator, he looked at them and told Cream, "I have to go." Immediately, she told him to be careful and 'have fun', and he mumbled a good-bye before pressing the 'end' button with a click and setting it on the table. For some reason, that emotion he couldn't identify at first made his stomach a bit queasy, but he shook his head and walked out of his room, still unwavering in his choice to not dwell on anything that related to the feline. It led to him being angry, confused, frustrated, and sympathetic all at once, and he didn't like that (especially the last one). He looked around with a frown, wondering where the hell she was, before finally remembering and glancing into the cat's room, where a visual of Kussia looking sternly awaited him. Sighing, he entered the room and felt all the more uneasy when the door seemed to heave a sigh as it shut. 'No, doors can't do that. Stupid imagination.' He scowled at himself before presenting his complete attention on the squirrel.

"Yes, sir?"

"Tiger Rank Shadow," Kussia started, showing how pissed he was as everyone in the room flinched, "I hope that _you_ can explain why Shadowpaw _refuses_ to talk!" Then, a familiar orange fox popped up beside him with a pouting face on as he complained, "I tried to talk to her, but she was barely listening!"

Shadow scoffed. "Why should _I_ care if she doesn't talk?" Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of her turning away to walk over and sit on the bed, but he stood still to look as if he hadn't been watching her.

"_You_ might not care about _that,_ but _I_ will _make_ you care about _why_ she won't talk to me _and_ flinches whenever I say your name!" He gave him a look that showed there was no room for arguments. "Didn't I tell you not to push her too far?"

"I didn't do _anything!_" He scowled at the squirrel on the screen. "It was _her_ that –"

Kussia interrupted him with an 'ah!', and when the hedgehog glared at him, he told him, "We aren't talking about _her._"

Shadow's eye twitched, and the urge to say some comment about the pointlessness in the conversation if that was the case was huge, but he swallowed his pride for now to try to reason with the squirrel. "Kussia, I can tell you _honestly_ that I have _no clue_ why she is acting like this." He gestured towards the feline and asked, "Did you ask _her?_"

"Yes, Shadow," even Shadow could tell when the feline flinched, "I did. And all I got was a shrug and _someone_ not looking me in the eye." His gaze flickered over to Shadowpaw for a moment, before they locked right back onto Shadow with a fiery inferno of gray-blue rage. He obviously did not like _not_ being in control of things. "God help me if I have to _threaten_ you to tell me."

Finally, his smart-ass-mouth got the better of him when he replied, "Don't use His name in vain." He knew he had just burnt the fuse to his destruction when Kussia's face went strangely calm, and the uneasy fluttering he had felt earlier burst into a bouquet of ravenous snakes hungrily eating away at his insides.

He knew he was in for it.

"Tails," Shadow's head snapped back up as his attention went to the fox, "I want you to contact Rouge for me." When the kid looked at him oddly but nodded and followed his request, the squirrel turned back to the communicator and he glared openly at the hedgehog standing there. Even Shadow felt unnerved by the Alpha Rex staring at him so intensely, and he had to look away before he was burned by his gaze. It was _that_ scary. He had heard of that look from others; rumors went around that said it had tortured people into confessions that even hours of the most gruesome torturing-devices couldn't do.

It was infamously named…the 'Kussia Look'.

As he got the KL dead-on, he wondered if he should just walk out now. After all, it wasn't like the Alpha Rex could do anything until he came back. '_If_ I come back.' He sighed and shook his head. 'The damn squirrel will probably kill me somehow before I return if I piss him off.' Deciding to just wait it out for a while, he crossed his arms and leaned on the wall beside the door, closing his eyes to escape the horror of it all. He could still _feel_ him staring, but at least it wasn't _as _bad. Then, a strange sound made his ears twitch, and both he and the feline in the room looked over to the door opening to the hallway with frowns on their faces.

He suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

She actually agreed with the hedgehog (if you could agree with a question) when he asked, "Was that…the door locking?" When the door to his room made the same noise, she had a terrible thought come into her mind that made her gulp. 'Are we…_locked_ in here? _Together?_'

"There."

She looked over to the squirrel staring triumphantly at the two, and as she continued to have that awful feeling in her stomach, she watched him turn to Tails and whisper something in his ear, which didn't make her feel any better. Then, he turned to them and proceeded to talk calmly to them, looking sort of pleased with himself. "Now, I told Rouge that we may have to do this…so, you brought this upon yourselves. Don't complain to me."

"What…" Shadowpaw was surprised herself when she started to ask, but when the others looked at her, she knew she couldn't leave the question hanging in the air, so she finished, "What do you mean?"

He looked at her sternly. "You _both_ need to learn how to deal with each other without outside interference." At this, he picked up his communicator and said, "Call me when you guys are finally _mature_ enough to deal with life."

"No, wait –" It closed too quickly for her words, though, and she let her arm fall back to her side from reaching out towards him and looked down at the ground, feeling the uncomfortable tension thicken in the room after the squirrel left.

Now she was alone. With _him._

She gulped. 'Man, this isn't good…' She listed all of the things that sucked about this:

One: She was stuck with Shadow.

Two: She was locked in the same room with him.

Three: He was in _her_ room.

Four: Rouge might be outside listening.

And Five: She didn't know when she was getting out.

Feeling completely hopeless and just wanting the day to end, she heaved a regretful sigh and walked over to sit on her bed, shivering as she felt his eyes on her. She didn't like the idea of him being in here, but if it stopped him from staring at her, she didn't _care_ what he looked through! As long as he stopped watching her like a hawk!

"…Well?"

She nearly jumped at his voice, but she kept her head down and refused to look at him. It may be childish, but she just didn't want to see his eyes examining her like an inanimate object, as if she wasn't really something worthy of his gaze. She didn't know why that it suddenly bothered her _now_, but it did. It just reminded her of how people acted after her parents died, because she wasn't 'good enough' and could never 'live to their expectations'. As if _they_ knew what her parents were like! They never really met them! They may have _thought_ that they knew them, but it was impossible to know their other side; they always kept a mask up to the rest of the pilots, only letting it down when they were alone at their house. 'Like parent, like idiot child…' She sighed again, feeling lower than ever before. 'No one knows _me_, either…'

"What now?"

She didn't reply with anything other than a shrug, and when he sighed and walked over to sit on the bed as well to her left, she gulped and turned her head away from him. 'Don't look at him, don't look at him, don't look at him…' She wanted to know if he was scowling at her or not, but she didn't want him to be looking at her as well, and so she compromised by finding the mirror and looking at him there. He was still staring at her, making goosebumps creep up her spine, but she didn't make any noise in fear that he would find the mirror and use her own tactic against her. 'Curiosity killed the cat,' she wanted to say aloud, but it would only raise more problems than it would solve.

"Cat, you can't just sit there forever and expect the problem to go away." He crossed his arms and continued his relentless watch on her, falling back to the old nickname out of habit and familiarity. "It may have worked before, but that's not going to help you in the future."

'Funny,' she thought ironically, 'but that's _exactly_ what Kussia told me before.' Instead of saying so, however, she cleared her throat and mumbled, "I can try…" To this he sighed and closed his eyes, turning his head away from her to think. She watched the reflection of his face, trying desperately to see what he was thinking, but his face was as blank as the blue sky although not as bright. She wished that she had as much expertise as he did so that she could see his emotions; nevertheless, she could only tell that he was thinking hard about something. 'Probably about whether or not he would get into trouble if he strangles me. I wouldn't be surprised, actually; he nearly did it once…' With the reminder of that night, her breathing became a bit more ragged, and she saw Shadow's ear twitch at the different pacing of her lungs and tried to keep herself under control. After all, she didn't want to piss him off again…

"Shadowpaw…" She froze when he started to speak, still keeping his head turned away yet now his eyes were open to stare at the wall to his left, but when he stopped she found the urge to look at him nearly overwhelming. Shadow, not knowing what to say? 'Wow, that's a first…' Then, he slowly continued, "Whatever it is that is bothering you, it is causing the fox-boy – as well as Kussia – to worry. If you don't make them at least believe that you're alright," he turned his gaze to look at her again, "then we'll _both_ never get out."

She pondered his words for a moment, but a sentence slipped from her lips before she could stop it: "His name is Tails." She gulped after it came out, waiting for him to get mad or yell or something and tell her how worthless she was once more. Instead, though, he looked almost relieved as if glad to have made some progress, and he nodded and muttered to himself, "Tails…" He seemed to accept that, and she felt even more creeped out by _that_ than _anything_ she had imagined. 'Eek, go back to angry mode and yell at me or something…' She'd rather have something normal happen than something totally unexpected.

Then, he continued on, "Besides, if it's something I did, I…" He paused again and sighed heavily. "…I'm sorry."

Finally, that's what got her to turn around and look at him with a look of pure shock and disbelief. "Say _what?_" She ignored the fact that he had finally gotten her to look at him to instead stare at his face and wait for the 'psyche!' she expected him to say. But he looked serious, and her eyes widened as she realized he wasn't kidding or pulling her leg. 'He's…he's _actually_…_sincerely_…_sorry?_' She felt like the world was going to start spinning the wrong way if things got anymore out of control, and she held her head and groaned, "My head hurts…"

When she looked back up, though, she was even more surprised to see him smirking, as if amused that she was so surprised, and she reached over and covered his mouth while mumbling, "Okay, stop, _now_ you're scaring me." That just made him chuckle, and she quickly lifted her hand away from his face so that the sound wasn't muffled and she was able to listen in pure shock at him laughing at her. 'I can't believe…he's _laughing._' She gulped as he clutched his stomach and closed his eyes, laughing harder than she had ever heard him laugh before in the close to two weeks she had known him in. She didn't think it was even possible for him to laugh. 'What, is he having _mood swings?_'

After a while of him laughing, he finally quieted down and panted with a look of surprised relief on his face. 'Wait, his _face!_' No longer was his emotions only in his blood-red orbs, but his _face_ actual told her that he was feeling comforted by his strange laughing fit. As she stared at him in surprise, he gave a wry grin and told her, a little out of breath, "I don't know why I found _that_ so funny, but…" He gave another brief chuckle, making her wonder who the _hell_ this was that she was locked up with. He looked as if he _enjoyed_ his laughter, like an old friend he hadn't met in years that came to a dinner party and patted him on the back warmly. 'It _can't_ be Shadow! He'd _never_ laugh!' Finally, he cleared his throat and calmed himself down enough so that his face was semi-blank once more, although she could still see the traces of a smirk on the corners of his mouth. Something so familiar made her relax a hair, but she was still wary as they went into a sort of staring contest. She now finally realized what she was doing, and she felt her face grow hot in embarrassment as it finally seemed to sink in that he was _laughing_ – at _her._ 'Of course, he'd find something funny that humiliated me!' She turned her head and looked down at her lap as she twiddled her thumbs nervously, not completely looking away as she glanced at him, waiting for him to start the conversation for she was too embarrassed to do it herself. 'Please kill the happy mood, please kill the happy mood, please!'

Finally, when he seemed to have his breathing back to normal and he wasn't as bright and cheery as before (yay for Shadowpaw!), he cleared his throat and started once more on talking to her to coax her out of her shell. "Shadowpaw," she was still amazed that he actually called her by her name, "if it solves anything, it…disgusted me when I realized how I acted." Realizing what he was talking about, she gulped but kept an ear out for his words as she continued looking down at her hands. "For me, my emotions can't be shown to others because…they're too strong." He sighed, finally back to his normal self, which made Shadowpaw a bit more relieved. "My anger isn't just angry. It's _furious_ and _vicious_, almost like a wild animal."

'Ooh, he's poetic.' She mentally rolled her eyes. 'Yet _another_ unexpected twist.' ("Bummer!" Heheh, inside joke…)

"So…" Finally, he got to the point. "I don't normally…get _that_ angry with a person, but something that you said just…made me snap." She looked up at him as he sighed, looking a bit sad for some reason. "I'm sorry if I frightened you." Then, he sat up and ran his hand through his spikes, looking a bit tense and maybe even stressed, before he started to walk over to the door (probably to see if Rouge was there or something). Then, not knowing what compelled her, she quickly reached out and grabbed his arm with a short, "Wait!"

He stopped and looked down at her rather small hand gripping his arm, barely wrapping her fingers around his wrist. She looked at his face, and then her hand, and then up at his face again, before she quickly let go of his as if embarrassed and tried to joke around it, "Me, _scared?_ More like pissed that you were pushing me up against a _wall._" When he looked at her smirk with an eyebrow raised, she added, "Are you sure you just didn't want to feel me up or something?"

At this, his own smirk returned, and something like mischievousness glimmered in his eyes as he taunted (or was it teased?), "Maybe…" He continued to smirk as she laughed, but then when she smacked his arm hard he frowned and asked, "What was _that_ for?"

"Feeling me up."

"I wasn't – _argh._" Although she knew he was smirking on the inside (after all, who couldn't laugh at that?), he put on a scowl and glared at her, but she just snickered again at him instead before picking up the communicator and saying casually as she spun it around, "We should call squirrelly-butt back so we can get out. I'm _hungry!_"

"If you keep eating tuna at this rate, you'll end up heavier than the cockpit can hold."

"Oh, shut up, rat."

"Make me, cat."

Although they were tossing insults back and forth, Shadowpaw was smiling. At least things were back to normal now.

Or…were they?

_K_-**U**-S-_S_-**I**-A-&-_S_-**L**-Y

The gray squirrel smiled at a job well done and turned off the television he had used to watch them. At that moment, Sly walked in, looking at him curiously since it was rare for him to be so happy while working. He asked cautiously, "…Kussia? Sir, are you…alright?"

"I'm perfectly fine," the Alpha Rex grinned as he turned to the fox, knowing that he would have wanted to watch what he had seen and enjoying the fact that he was clueless. "Just doing a little paperwork, is all. What did you come here for?"

Sly grinned as he held up a disc, light bouncing off of it and making rainbows fly across his office. "We've caught her red-handed."


	14. Mornings

**(**_**A Note:**__** Thanks to AmyAddict1, we now finally have a permanent name for this story! 'The Perfect Harmony of Hearts', or tPHoH for short! I do abbreviations of all of my stories, just for you to know.**_**)**

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Mornings**

**(A/N: Okay, no chatting here, either. I'm just too lazy! It's amazing I get ANYTHING done!)**

_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

Rouge walked in as the feline rummaged around in the fridge, and she raised an eyebrow and asked her, "What are you doing?" There was a pan out on the stove, as well as butter, eggs, garlic, onions, ham, and bacon (which is really just crunchy ham). It looked like she was preparing for a great task.

Shadowpaw looked up at the bat and said with a determined grin, "I am finally gonna tackle this thing and get some quality breakfast from this damn Hover Cargo!" She then whipped around and flicked the dial on the stove, putting it up to high to warm it up. She put a ton of butter in there, and soon it looked like a yellow sea in the pan (eww). Rouge raised an eyebrow, but she didn't say anything as she walked back out of the kitchen, leaving the feline to her business.

She decided that she would go by Shadow's room and see if he was awake, seeing as how Shadowpaw was already and it would be strange if he wasn't. She cracked open his door a bit to see that he wasn't inside, and her bat-hearing caught the sounds of a shower in the hallway. She smirked and stepped inside, thinking, 'Now _this_ is more like it! Let's find out more about our handsome hedgehog…'

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_ S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W

After he had taken his shower and made sure he was as clean as a whistle, he walked out of the bathroom with a pair of slacks on and was rubbing his head dry with the towel only to bump into someone on his way to his room. He stared at Rouge who was looking at him with a sly smirk, narrowing his eyes slightly, and then she said, "Oh, I was just looking for you." She walked past him seductively and touched his shoulder as she told him, "I just wanted to tell you that _Shadowpaw_ was cooking breakfast for you today."

"Shadowpaw?" All suspicions and questions he was going to ask her flew out of his mind at the strange suggestion, and he threw the towel into the basket in his room and walked quickly down the hall, determined to see whether she was pulling his leg or not. After all, he didn't think she could cook. 'She might burn the whole place down,' he mentally snickered, before urgently speeding his pace up a bit at the idea. 'Oh, God, please tell me I'm wrong.' The door hissed as it opened, and immediately his senses were overwhelmed with the smell of (not burning) food. Sighing quietly in relief, he walked over to the feline (who had not noticed him yet) and raised an eyebrow at her humming something that was eerily familiar to Patsy Cline's 'Crazy' as she stirred the butter and garlic in one pan while she checked how cooked the omelet was becoming. She put down the spatula she used for the eggs and grabbed the salt to sprinkle a light amount on them before turning the dial down a bit and turning around to grab something else from the fridge, only to come face-to-face with Shadow standing there and staring at her oddly.

She jumped and gave a small squeak in surprise, but when she recovered and saw his smirk she put her hands on her hips and glared at him, daring him to say something. He didn't. She scowled and asked, "What the hell do _you_ want?"

'So much for her being friendlier.' He crossed his arms and asked casually, "What are you doing?"

"Making breakfast, _duh!_" She rolled her eyes and waved her hand at the stovetop. "It's not like I was hiding any of this or anything!" She went back to cooking, leaving the hedgehog to seethe at her stubborn nature. She ignored his glare on her back and instead went to check her buttery garlic, which was starting to brown. She took a taste test, smiling at the crunch and mumbling to herself, "There, that's done…" She took that pan off of the burner and continued with her eggs, letting the substance cool down while she cooked the rest. In fact, her bacon was done, as well. Before she could take it off, though, Shadow grabbed a hold of the handle and lifted it away from her, and as she looked at him oddly he grabbed a piece of bacon for himself. She scoffed and rolled her eyes again before putting her attention back on her omelet. 'Stupid bastard, it's not like I'm making it just for _him…_' She mentally grumbled until that was done, too, and she took it off before the hedgehog could get to it and put it on a plate, putting a tuna can on top of it to show that it was hers. She smirked when he frowned as she put the omelet on the table, but she stopped when he asked, "And where would mine be?"

"…Yours?"

"Yes, _mine._" He crossed his arms and said coolly, "You can't expect to not get the duty of making breakfast when you're showing off in the kitchen." Then, as an afterthought, he added as he scratched his nose and looked down at the cabinets beside the stove, "Personally, I didn't even know you could cook…"

"Well, I _can._" She crossed her arms again and glared at him. "It's not _that_ surprising. I am a _female_ after all, and that is the _place_ for women."

"Really?" The way he said it made her blood boil, and she narrowed her eyes and spun around, shouting as she exited the kitchen, "Make your _own_ damn omelet!" If only she could slam a sliding door…that would make her feel better. But, there was nothing to slam, and so she decided that taking a shower would have to make her feel better. Shadow, really wanting his omelet, followed her out of the kitchen.

She closed the bathroom door with a huff and turned around to stare at something on the ground. 'Is that…' She picked it up and rolled the cross pendant around in her hands. 'He must have taken a shower and forgotten it in here…' She thought about hiding it just to spite him, but looking at the metal cross made her rethink that. After all, it was a religious item, and to do so would probably be considered a sin or something. She wasn't _that_ religious, but she knew enough that it was bad to steal. 'Oh, well, I'll just give it to him after my shower is over.' She put it on the counter of the sink and shed her clothing to step into the warm water that awaited her, giving a contented sigh of relief as it washed over her. 'Thank _God_ there's such thing as warm water…' Bowing her head under the spray, she felt all worries and thoughts leave her mind as the urge to hum a tune suddenly came upon her. Taking up the chance in her time alone, the cross seemed to be inspiring her as she went from a simple melody to a familiar song…

'Is that the sound of humming or something?' The hedgehog looked about the hallway for a moment before glancing at the closed bathroom door and the sound of water running. Curiosity overriding his hunger, he carefully stepped over to the wall to put his ear up to it, his eyes widening a fraction of an inch at the sound of her voice humming 'Silent Night'. "What is she…?" Not being able to ask her anything because she was taking a shower, he instead just put his arm up onto the wall to support him as he leaned against it, closing his eyes as the thought of someone else he had known singing that song bubbled up in his thoughts. Memories of back when he was little filled his mind completely, and he felt a bit nostalgic as they kept pestering him at the sound of her voice, making him want to move yet at the same time gluing his feet to the floor.

He opened his eyes when he heard the water stop, and he was finally able to whirl around and walk swiftly away to avoid the awkward explanation he would've had to give had she found him standing next to the bathroom as she got out. 'I could've just said I was waiting for my turn…' But, he had already had a shower that morning, and he wasn't about to try to pull that one off either way, so he decided to walk back into the kitchen and eat some of the food still there, slightly cold. As he picked at Shadowpaw's omelet (he didn't really care if she yelled at him – after all, she could make another since she was good in the kitchen), he wondered why she had been doing such strange things to his head. 'Back in her room before, she suddenly caused me to lose control of my anger – which I never do.' Sighing, he put an elbow on the table and propped his head on his hand. 'And then, later I had to apologize, and she got me to _laugh,_ dammit. I don't _laugh._ And now, just because she was singing in the shower, I feel all moody and broody like they say I am, except worse.' He sighed again and shook his head. 'I knew that females were strange, but this is the icing on the cake.'

Then, just as he was thinking about her, the very feline he was talking about popped her wet head into the room and glared at him, with just a towel on as she had only just gotten out of the shower and heard the sound of silverware clinking against a plate. Her gaze went between him and her food, and she hissed, "That's _mine,_ _**rat!**_ Who said you could eat _my_ food?"

"Well, you weren't eating it," he pointed out, "because instead you went to go take a shower. By the way, aren't cats supposed to hate water?"

"Oh, go to Hell."

"Already there."

She scoffed and whipped around, walking back to her room as she fumed under her breath, "What gives him the right to take my food? That bastard…I hope that he dies of a heart attack or something." Still angry, she groaned as she walked into her room only to hear her stomach growl longingly. "_Oh,_ I'm so _hungry!_"

A knock on her closed door made her grumble under her breath more as she turned right back around to open it, thinking, 'I haven't even had the time to get into my clothes yet!' When she opened it only to find Shadow there, she was about to close it back on him when he pushed the plate of food into her arms forcefully, almost making her lose her grip on her towel. He told her, "I'm full. I eat like a bird."

She snarled and shut the door quickly, mumbling something like 'pervert' loud enough so that he could hear her. He scowled at the door, as if she could see it. 'What makes _me_ a pervert? I gave her the _food_ back!' Shaking the thought from his head, he slipped into his room nearly unnoticed, laying down on his bed and sighing up at the ceiling.

"I hate mornings…"

_K_-**U**-S-_S_-**I**-A-&-_S_-**L**-Y

"Kussia! Why didn't you _tell_ me you had cameras in the Hover Cargo?"

The gray squirrel grinned at his friend's obvious displeasure from not being notified beforehand, and he put it simply, "You never asked, Sly." As the fox crossed his arms and pouted much like Tails would (it seemed that they were both rubbing off on each other), the Alpha Rex shook his head and chuckled at him before turning back to his screens and a more serious look came about his face. His eyes searched every single screen, and yet he couldn't seem to find her.

"Can't find that bat?"

"No," the squirrel said with a sigh, "she's nowhere to be seen. And we have proof of her sending copies of important files to an unknown source outside of our communications. As soon as we have her right where we want her…"

"She disappears." Sly sighed and leaned against a wall in deep thought, trying to calculate wherever she could possibly be. "Man, and I wanted to watch her with the cameras, too…"

"Authorized personnel only – sorry, buddy."

"Damn…oh, well." He stretched his arms up over his head with a grunt, and then walked over to the squirrel and sitting in the seat beside him. "How much sleep you get?"

"None." He raised an eyebrow. "You?"

"Same."

"It seems that being the 'alpha dog' isn't all that it's cracked up to be."

"Nope; it's Hell in a can."

Kussia smirked. "And let me guess: you're the devil."

The red fox mirrored that smirk and chuckled a bit, replying, "Ah, yes, I'm that damned handsome angel that was sent down to Hell to repent." Then, he scratched the back of his neck and mumbled, "Sounds like my life story…"

"Mine, too, just without the 'repent' part."

"Oh ho, so _you_ think you're handsome like _me?_"

"Nope, just sent down to Hell."

"Ah, I see…" A silence overcame them again, with Sly picking loose threads off of his uniform of yellow and white while the Alpha Rex continued to watch those screens. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was now serious once more and they had to focus. Kussia was doing a good job, but Sly…not so much.

"Hey, do you think I can watch _Shadowpaw_ taking a shower?"

"No."

"Aww…" He pouted again. "You're no fun."

"I'm Alpha Rex Rank Kussia R. Windokin, leader of the Crusaders; I'm not _supposed_ to be fun."

"Whatever…stick-in-the-mud."

"I'll give you a stick and tell you _exactly _where to put it…hey, aren't you supposed to be working with Tails on the projects? Is he working all by himself in the hangar?"

"He's more than capable enough; in fact, he even said I was 'getting in his way' once or twice." He chuckled. "The boy's going to be a fine mechanic one day."

"He might even take over your spot."

"Hell, I'll have to _die_ first."

"That's why."

"What, are you getting angry at me? Or, are you talking about…" When the squirrel nodded, Sly sighed and crossed his arms once more. "I don't know what to tell you on that one. But, if anyone _is _a spy in here," he looked up with a determined gaze towards the screens intently, "I'll be sure to take care of it."

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W-&-_R_-**O**-U-_G_-**E**

She enjoyed her breakfast (cold) and finally got into something decent when someone knocked on her door once more. She groaned and shouted, "If it's the rat, you're not welcome in here!"

"It's just me, Ms. Attitude!"

"Grr…well, come in," she said a little reluctantly, and the bat opened the sliding door to step in elegantly and smile at her deviously. Not liking the look on her face, Shadowpaw asked her, "Well? What do you want?"

"Do I _have_ to _always_ have a reason to talk to a friend?"

"Do you know _how_ many times you've asked me that, and yet you _still_ have a reason?"

"Well, fine," she huffed, crossing her arms at the feline, "I was _just_ going to ask you something, but I can tell that my presence isn't wanted here." She did an about-face and was about to walk back out when Shadowpaw, as she always did, reached out and grumbled, "Alright, whatever, don't get all pissy…" Rouge smiled slyly and went back to sit down on the bed beside her, looking at the plate with an eyebrow raised before opening her mouth for the _real_ reason she was there.

"Do you like Shadow?"

No hesitation. "No."

"Okay." Rouge smiled. "Wow, I thought that was going to be harder than it was!"

"…Wait, _what?_" The tone in the bat's voice confused her, and the feline frowned and looked at her questioningly. "_What_ exactly were you asking me?"

Rouge rolled her eyes and elaborated, "Do you have any sexual or romantic interests in him now or for the near future?"

"_Eww,_ no." Shadowpaw stuck her tongue out and made a face. "What the _hell_ makes you ask that?"

"Oh, nothing," she casually crossed her legs and drawled simply, "after all, he _is_ a handsome guy, and I wanted to know if you were already looking at him before I made my move."

"…Your _move?_"

"Yeah. You know," she smirked mischievously, "into his room?"

"Oh, _yuck._ Didn't need that image." She wiped her face as if to get something extremely disgusting off of it, and she glared at the bat's laughing and snapped, "What the bloody hell are _you_ laughing at?"

"Oh, nothing, honey," she put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as her body shook with contained laughter. "It's just that – you sound like such a kid saying that! It's like, you've _never_ thought of anything like that before!"

"Err, well…that's because I haven't."

Rouge's eyes widened and she gasped, actually looking rather serious about it. "_Never?_"

"_Ever._" Shadowpaw rolled her eyes at the bat's surprise and growled, "What? It's not like I'm interested in a relationship right now, _'honey'_. I mean, we're in the frickin' military! That's the _last_ thing on my mind right now!"

"Really? Cuz that's the first on mine." She winked at her buddy as the feline made another face, and then laughed at her before patting her on the back and assuring her, "Don't worry, eventually you will be dreaming about stuff like that, and you won't be able to ignore it as it creeps into every one of your subconscious thoughts." Then, her head tilted to the side (ironically) like a cat, and she asked unsurely, "I mean…you _have_ hit puberty, right?"

"Oh my God, you _can't_ be serious." She glared at her and hissed, "_Yes,_ I have, you freakin' mental bitch. Damn, what kind of messed up question is _that?_ I'm freakin' _seventeen!_"

"Ah, don't worry, I was just checking. After all, that's when those thoughts normally starts." She winked at her again before getting up and saying before she departed, "Well, I just came to make sure you were okay with this before I went ahead and did it. Didn't want to get you _jealous_, after all." Shadowpaw scowled and mumbled something about 'why should I be jealous of _that_', before she quickly asked as the bat stepped out, "Wait, you won't do any of that stuff while I'm right there with you guys, right?"

The bat stopped in the doorway, putting a finger to her chin pretending to be in thought, before flashing one of her sharp smirks to the feline and teasing, "Maybe." As Shadowpaw scowled and threw a pillow at her, and she dodged it with a smile only to bump into something firm yet furry when she backed up. She turned around to look at Shadow with an eyebrow raised, admiring his bare chest appreciatively, before his jagged glare quickly caught her attention. She blinked once, then crossed her arms and inquired, "What's wrong, Shad?"

"_Don't call me that,_" he growled, and then said accusingly, "_someone_ was in my room."

"Really?" Pretending as if she was as surprised as Shadowpaw, Rouge focused her weight to one foot as she frowned and wondered aloud, "Why do you say that?"

"My pendant is gone," he snarled ferociously, looking much like a hungry lion that had been taunted inside of a cage, and by the gasp of realization behind her Rouge figured that the feline knew why. Sounding a bit embarrassed, Shadowpaw came over and said, "Hold on, I know where it is."

"What were you doing in my room?" He glared at her viciously, looking frightening to any normal person, but Shadowpaw (not only the most abnormal on the Hover Cargo) seemed to have gathered more courage since the last time she had faced his anger, and besides he was making false accusations. She replied, "Actually, I _haven't_ been in your room. I found it in the bathroom when I went to go take a shower, but after you _stole_ my breakfast I suppose I forgot." She flipped her long hair-like fur over her shoulder in a way to irritate him further and spat, "_Sorry_ for attempting to be nice for _once._" She then stomped down the hallway to retrieve said item, grumbling to herself about 'omelets' and 'hedgehogs' in a way that made Rouge grin. She looked at the hedgehog glaring at Shadowpaw's back and ventured with a question-disguised-as-a-statement, "I guess this morning was a bit rough?"

He just snorted and turned on his heel to stomp into his room, which Rouge found as funny as watching a couple of five-year-olds fight over a broken toy, and she covered her mouth to hide her smile as Shadowpaw came back to stomp over to the hedgehog's room and bang on the door. After a moment, the door opened and she literally threw the necklace at him before he could give out an insult to her.

"Ah, young children always make me laugh."

_S_-**H**-A-_D_-**O**-W-_P_-**A**-W

She was allowed a little bit longer to sulk in her room before suddenly the door between her and Shadow's rooms swooshed open to let said hedgehog stroll in as if he owned the place. 'He's _always_ got that frame of mind,' she scowled mentally before it became a physical feature on her face as she saw him walking over to her desk with a look of purpose on his face. 'What is he _doing,_' she wondered before she voiced it to him, "What are you _doing?_"

He did not answer, getting on her nerves as he went on as if she wasn't there and picked up the communicator on the desk, turning it over in his palms as he pressed a few buttons. With a horrified look of fury on her face, she got up from the bed and walked over to snatch it from his grip while giving him a piece of her mind when –

"You're not charging this thing often, are you?"

She scoffed, but stopped in her tracks to instead cross her arms and lamely reply, "So? What's it to _you?_" In her mind, she scolded herself for not thinking of a better comeback. 'I bet _his __**grandmother**_ could do better – that is, if _she's_ not dead…eh, she could still probably do better.'

"What's it to _me?_" He looked at her, voice still calm but a bit irritated, and put one arm up so that he could lean against the wall coolly as if to try to intimidate her or something. Of course, that didn't work, but she'd let him have his fantasy if he would let her be. He told her sternly, "It concerns me when _everyone_ – and I mean _everyone_ – has to contact _me_ to get to _you._" To prove it to her, he held out his own communicator in example and crossly showed the many 'missed calls' on the device. She winced, realizing what that meant – between his own personal calls (Rouge had told her about Cream, which made her mentally grin) and Tails and Kussia and God knows who else, the guy probably did not get much rest.

"Err…"

"Yeah, 'err' is right." She glared at him when he went to put it on the charger for her, 'mumbling' about 'troublesome females' and 'cats' and their 'tendencies'. Getting fed up with it all, she angrily grabbed his arm and shouted, "_Hey,_ you! What makes you think that I can't do that myself?"

"Oh, _other_ than the fact that you _haven't_ had it plugged in since we've got here?"

She blanked. "…O-other than that."

"Oh, please," and those words were what drove her over the edge at last. Her eyes nearly turning feral, she growled threateningly and spat, "_Look,_ I don't need _you_ to 'baby-sit'," she did air-quotes with a sarcastic air around her, "me, so how about you go play with your _dollies_ or something and _leave me alone._"

A nearly boyish smirk grew on his cold sharp face, and he asked oh-so-innocently, "Now, _why_ would I do that? After all, you're such _fun_ company."

Getting really angry, she gave him a fake sweet smile and told him slowly, "Well, if you like to have _fun,_ perhaps you could hang out with _Rouge!_ I'm _pretty_ sure she could give you a fun time!" Dropping the smile to instead glower at him, she whirled around to walk back over to lay down on her bed (this time to ignore him like he did to her) when she felt him grab her shoulder and heard him ask curiously, "Come again? What about the bat?"

She groaned and shoved his arm away to turn back around and glare at his face. "In case you didn't understand me with your _tiny brain_," this statement made him frown, much to her delight, "I said that _Rouge_ is always open and you can call her anytime. I, however, am not." When he went to open his mouth in some insult or another, she interrupted him by saying, "Uh-uh! I don't take house calls." When he looked extremely peeved, Shadowpaw felt her work was done and smiled innocently at him before finally going back to her bed and laying down on it casually, looking at the ceiling as if it was the most amazing thing in the world. She knew it annoyed him to no end to be ignored (much like it worked on her, but eh, details) and was proud of the fruit of her accomplishments when he growled under his breath before walking over to her and leaning over to look down at her. She continued to pretend he wasn't there, but she was trying _really_ hard not laugh in his face.

"Grr," he glared at her as she continued to keep her eyes away from him, "cat, _look_ at me."

She remained quiet, her eyes averted to the ceiling.

"_Cat…_"

Silence. Still no eye contact.

"I will make sure to find the most _annoying thing possible _to get your attention."

"How about you try singing?"

He rolled his eyes and sighed as she finally conceded to her bubbling giggles and held her stomach as they escalated to full-scale laughter, ignoring the hedgehog for the moment as she congratulated herself mentally for her good work. 'That _sooooo_ makes up for the lame-o line earlier!' Smiling and laughing so much it began to hurt, she went into another hard fit of guffaws when Shadow just scoffed and walked back into his room, making sure to stomp loudly as the door slid shut behind him. She could barely contain herself when Rouge walked into the room, and it took all of her self-control to look normal when the bat asked curiously, eyebrow raised, "What was all that noise I heard?"

"Oh, nothing. Hey," Shadowpaw called to her before she left, "you know, next time you're talking to the 'king of the Cargo', how about you ask him how he sings?"

"Why?" She frowned as she was only answered with a huge guffaw from the feline, shaking her head in slight amusement before leaving her to laugh herself to tears on her bed, kicking pillows onto the ground and leaving them there like neglected orphans. She held her stomach as if she had been kicked, sure that she would burst if she kept it up.

She laughed at another idea and had trouble breathing as she felt a pain in her side. "_Ha – oh my God – and ask him if he can sing in __**Italian!**__ Voooooolare! Ohohoh!_"


End file.
